Group 7 continued to provide the bulk of the drama on the third day of the European mixed team championships as Sweden, Belgium and Ukraine battled it out for a place in the quarter finals. The math was simple, Ukraine needed any win over Belarus plus Belgium to beat Sweden to advance. If the Swedes beat Belgium they would claim top spot and the Belgians themselves needed a minor 5-0 miracle win over Sweden to upset the odds.

In the end the on looking Ukrainian team were the ones cheering when Belgian Men’s doubles pairing of Dierickx and Golinski defeated Swedish duo of Nordh and Lundqvist when resulted in the Ukrainians going through on the matches won count back rule to meet England in tomorrow’s quarter final.

Team England put out their big guns in a pre-quarter final warm up against Lithuania and the English romped to a 5-0 which England veteran Jenny Wallwork was more than pleased with.

“We have a strong squad and we put out a very strong team today in preparation for tomorrow’s quarter final. The matches will get harder from here and as a unit we are up for the challenge”

In the longest match of the day Ireland gave their French seeded opposition a real scare and in truth should have made some Irish history and made the quarter finals for the first time in their history. The Irish took the opening mixed doubles and Scott Evans will count himself unlucky against French number 1 Brice Leverdez going down in three.

Chloe Magee put the Irish 2-1 up and when leading 1 set to nil and 14-11 up in the second game of the men’s doubles the shock looked on the cards. However it was not to be for the Irish as the French pulled through to take the men’s doubles and the final women’s doubles in the shape of Emilie Lefel and Delphine Lansac to book their quarter final spot.

“I think we definitely left that match behind us out there today and we just could not finish off the good work. It was a new experience for us and we will take the positives away and come back stronger” said Chloe Magee.

Elsewhere the big guns of Denmark and Russia went through with ease and the small team from The Netherlands gave their hospitalised colleague Jelle Maas reason to celebrate with yet another 5-0 group victory.

The match between Germany and Spain produced one of the landmark moments of the tournament so far as Carolina Marin played a game befitting a world’s elite player to defeat Juliane Schenk, the current world number 4. Marin is for sure heading to the top of the world rankings based on her performance this evening in Russia.

“I find it hard to speak right now after this victory as to beat Juliane Schenk like this is such a big result. It’s my ambition to be like her in the top five in the world and matches like this give me the motivation to work hard” said an emotional Marin after her epic victory.

The quarter final line up is as follows

FRANCE V GERMANY
ENGLAND V UKRAINE
DENMARK V SCOTLAND
THE NETHERLANDS V RUSSIA (match live on YouTube)

For all results from Russia click HERE
For photo gallery click HERE
To re visit the day’s action log on to Badminton Europe TV by clicking HERE

Article by Mark Phelan (Live in Ramenskoe)
Photo by Badminton Photo (Live)