France achieved a Thomas Cup milestone, winning their first-ever medal by reaching the semifinals after beating Japan 3-0.
Hosts Denmark joined France in the semifinals, marking the first time that two European teams have featured in the last four of the same edition.
In keeping with the theme of French resurgence this week, it was no surprise that they completed a 3-0 rout of 2014 champions Japan despite trailing in each of the individual match-ups.

Christo Popov (2-3 to Kodai Naraoka), Alex Lanier (0-3 to Yushi Tanaka) and Toma Junior Popov (0-2 to Koki Watanabe) delivered on a perfect session for France, all in straight games.
Christo had the hard task of breaking through the stonewalling abilities of Naraoka, which he eventually completed in 67 minutes.
“When you play Kodai, you know it’s going to be long and you know he’s not going to make easy mistakes,” said Christo. “He’s going to make you run, make you sweat a lot and he’s really good at that. I was prepared for that.”
Lanier’s was a quicker job, and then France had to endure nervous moments as Watanabe threatened to take Toma Junior into a third game. Not on this day, though, for Toma Junior had the final say, edging the Japanese 21-19 23-21.
“I wanted to cry but I cannot because I’m too happy and too joyful, and there’s no more energy left in my body,” said Toma Junior.
“I gave everything on the court. It’s just incredible. We wrote history on Tuesday to win against Indonesia and qualify, and now we write it again, a first medal in the team championships. And now I think we put a great stamp on the French Badminton Federation and France itself for the badminton, that we are coming, and we are ready to fight.”
Antonsen Leads Charge
Denmark will take on defending champions China, after quelling Thailand’s challenge 3-1.
Anders Antonsen led the charge with a hard-fought 21-16 11-21 21-18 result over Kunlavut Vitidsarn.
An hour later it was 2-0 for the hosts, with Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen’s three-game win in the doubles.
Panitchaphon Teeraratsakul has been in form all through the event and he delivered once again for Thailand, beating Magnus Johannesen in straight games.
Scratch pair Mathias Christiansen/Daniel Lundgaard were on the button from the beginning and they duly captured the third point with a straight-games win.
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