Scotland's Badminton Players Set for Gold Coast Clash With World Leaders
Scotland’s badminton players face a tough test at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games as today’s draw for the Mixed Team event saw them pitted against the World’s top nation, India, in the group stages.
Australian Commonwealth Games Badminton medallists Rhonda Cator and Michaela Smith were on hand at The Star Gold Coast as the 16 competing nations were drawn into four groups and the schedule for the group playoff stage of the GC2018 Badminton team event was confirmed.
Nations were seeded based on their world rankings and the official draw was completed according to Badminton World Federation (BWF) rules.
Stage one of the draw saw India as the top nation in world rankings allocated the top spot in Group A and Malaysia, as the number two seed and going for a fourth consecutive gold medal in this event, allocated top spot in Group D. In stage two, third seeds England drew the top spot in Group C and fourth seeds Singapore drew Group B.
From there, nations were drawn randomly based on their world rankings with Scotland drawn in Group A with India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Over the first two days of the Games, 5-6 April, teams will play each nation in their group in a round-robin format, with the top two nations from each group qualifying for the quarter-finals – where the knockout phase begins.
The draw for the knockout stage of the competition, which runs from 7-9 April, will be determined immediately after the last match of the group playoff stage.
Reacting to the draw, Badminton Team Manager, Christine Black, said: “I think the players will be quite happy with that group. All four nations will be strong but we’ve just got to focus on ourselves and make sure we finish in the top two to get through to the quarter-finals. We have a young team who will be quite capable of that and if we could beat India that would be a fantastic result.”
Group Playoff Stage:
| Group A | Group B | Group C | Group D |
| India | Singapore | England | Malaysia |
| Scotland | Mauritius | Australia | Canada |
| Pakistan | Zambia | South Africa | Seychelles |
| Sri Lanka | Jamaica | Uganda | Ghana |
The Badminton competition will take place from 5-15 April at the Carrara Sports and Leisure Centre, the venue which hosted the 2017 Sudirman Cup. The Mixed Team competition will be the first event on the programme and is followed by the Singles and Doubles events.
The Badminton players who will represent Team Scotland at Gold Coast 2018 will be announced later this month.