Our opponents today are Egypt (currently 14th), Singapore (11th) and Canada (7th). The Seniors still have five matches to play to complete their round robin, unlike the Open team who have three matches left, and the Women, who are playing their last match this morning.
The top eight teams qualify from each of the two Senior pools. The way the draw works for the round of 16 is that the winning team in Pool A will choose their opponents from the teams lying 5th to 8th in Pool B. Then the second team in Pool A will choose from the remaining three 5-to-8 teams in Pool B, and so on. Although the Senior team are very likely to finish in the top eight, it is important that they finish as high as possible so that they can have some control in selecting their next opponents.
These are the sort of procedures that the World Badminton Federation should have had in place in the Olympics to ensure that all the pool matches had some importance and that deliberately losing matches would not be in the competitors' interests.
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