Malaysia\u2019s decision to field two scratch pairs misfired spectacularly as they were beaten 2-3 by Japan in their top of the table clash in the Thomas Cup Finals in Horsens, Denmark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And with their top singles shuttlers underperforming, with the exception of the much criticized Lee Zii Jia, the defeat was not a big surprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Japan\u2019s campaign at the championships has been significantly affected by the later withdrawals of singles ace Kenta Nishimoto and doubles specialist Yugo Kobayashi. But, the withdrawals seemingly had little impact against the sputtering Malaysians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leong Jun Hao was outplayed 11-21, 15-21 by world number 9 Kodai Naraoka. It was only the second time in eight meetings that Naraoka had beaten Jun Hao. His last win over the 25th<\/sup> ranked Malaysian came two years ago, a three game victory at the Japan Open. It was a much easier affair this time, with Naraoka taking just 39-minutes for the win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Malaysia chose to split their top ranked Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik and pairing of Aaron with Tee Wai Kun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The scratch Malaysian pair stunned Japan\u2019s 24th<\/sup> world ranked Kakeru Kumagai-Hiroki Nishi 21-16, 14-21, 19-21 after a 66-minute encounter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It seemed that the gamble to split their top pairs was working. But the Malaysins misfired again the singles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the encounter with the 19th<\/sup> ranked Yushi Tanaka and 44th<\/sup> ranked Justin Ho, it was the former, who continued his domination over Justin<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tanaka defeated Justin for the fourth consecutive time and the second time this year with a 21-15, 21-12 win in 39-minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Malaysia fielded the scratch pairing of Nur Izzuddin-Soh Wooi Yik instead of Izzuddin\u2019s regular partner Goh Sze Fei.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They started off well to take the first game, but failed to handle the pressure losing the match 21-14, 19-21, 10-21 in 70-minutes to Takumi Nomura-Yuichi Shimogami.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Koki Watanabe lost to Lee Zii Jia 13-21, 19-21 in the dead rubber. The win over Watanabe was also the first for Zii Jia, currently ranked 80th<\/sup>, over his world number 20 Japanese opponent in four meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Group A, China edged India 3-2 to finish tops in the group while Canada, who whitewashed Australia 5-0 in the bottom of the table clash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile the Uber Cup quarter-finals start tomorrow with China taking on Malaysia, Denmark playing Indonesia, Japan squaring off against Thailand and Chinese Taipei facing Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n RESULTS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n THOMAS CUP<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n GROUP A<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n China beat India <\/strong>(Li Shifeng bt Lakshya Sen 21-19, 8-21, 21-12; Lian Weikeng-Wang Chang bt Satwiksairaj-Chirag Shetty 21-13, 13-21, 26-24; Weng Hongyang lost to Ayush Shetty 21-17, 13-21, 15-21; He Jiting-Ren Xiangyu bt Hariharan Amsakarunan-M.R. Arjun 21-17, 21-13; Lu Guangzu lost to Prannoy H.S. 22-20, 19-21, 11-21)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Canada beat Australia 5-0 <\/strong>(Victor Lai bt Stephen Sam Ephraim 21-9, 21-6; Kevin Lee-Ty Alexander Lindeman bt Rizky HIdayat-Jack Yu 21-13, 21-15; Brian Yang bt Shrey Dhand 21-6, 21-11; Daniel Leung-Nyi Yakura bt Andika Ramadiansyah-Frederick Zhao 15-21, 21-19, 21-11; Joshua Nguyen bt Rishi Honda Boobathy 21-11, 21-7)<\/p>\n\n\n\n GROUP B <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Japan beat Malaysia 3-2 <\/strong>(Kodai Naraoka bt Leong Junhao 21-11, 21-15; Kakeru Kumagai-Hiroki Nishi lost to Aaron Chia-Tee Kai Wun 21-16, 14-21, 19-21; Yushi Tanaka bt Justin Ho 21-15, 21-12; Takumi Nomura-Yuichi Shimogami bt Nur Izzuddin-Soh Wooi Yik 14-21, 21-19, 21-19; Koki Watanabe lost to Lee Zii Jia 13-21, 19-21)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Malaysia\u2019s decision to field two scratch pairs misfired spectacularly as they were beaten 2-3 by Japan in their<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[75],"class_list":["post-12429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-badminton"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Takumi-Nomura-Yuichi-Shimogami-.jpg",1066,600,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Takumi-Nomura-Yuichi-Shimogami--150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Takumi-Nomura-Yuichi-Shimogami--300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Takumi-Nomura-Yuichi-Shimogami--768x432.jpg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Takumi-Nomura-Yuichi-Shimogami--1024x576.jpg",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Takumi-Nomura-Yuichi-Shimogami-.jpg",1066,600,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Takumi-Nomura-Yuichi-Shimogami-.jpg",1066,600,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Takumi-Nomura-Yuichi-Shimogami--825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Takumi-Nomura-Yuichi-Shimogami--590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Takumi-Nomura-Yuichi-Shimogami-.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12429"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12432,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12429\/revisions\/12432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}