A sensational display from France saw them hammer India 3-0 as Christo Popov, Alex Lanier and Toma Popov raced to straight games wins over Ayush Shetty, Kidambi Srikanth and HS Prannoy. An injury sustained in Friday’s quarterfinal saw Lakshya Sen skip the semifinal.
The matches ended
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C Popov beat Ayush 21-11, 21-9
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Lanier beat Srikanth 21-16, 21-18
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T Popov beat Prannoy 21-19, 21-16
The normal order of singles, doubles, singles, doubles, singles wasn’t followed here because France’s number 1 doubles pair are the Popov brothers and they need a gap between their own singles games before taking to court again. As it turned out, neither doubles teams were called into action.
The impressive win takes France into their first ever Thomas Cup final and signals to the badminton world that their golden generation is the real deal. Facing them in the final will be defending champions China.
For India, meanwhile, it is just their second ever Thomas Cup medal and even if bronze is not the colour they wanted to return home with, it remains an impressive achievement for India’s own golden generation of men’s badminton players.
You can relive the action, as it happened, right here on our live blog.