Kuala Lumpur, May 15: Denmark made the Uber Cup semifinals for the third consecutive time when they overcame Japan 3-2 to emerge as the Pink Group winner at Stadium Putra tonight.
Denmark, widely considered as the strongest European women's team, are trying to reach the final of the Uber Cup final again after 40 years and tonight's victory was most satisfying.
By beating Japan and topping group A tonight, Denmark thus achieved their objective of avoiding heavy favourite China in the semifinal.
They had also reached the Uber Cup semifinals in 1996 and 1998 but lost to 0-5 to China and 1-4 to Indonesia respectively.
Denmark will meet South Korea in the last four while Indonesia, who qualified as the runners-up from the group, will now have to play China.
The Danish team fielded their best lineup for their last group match, with world champion Camilla Martin leading the way.
Camilla maintained her wining ways against Japan's Yasuko Mizui winning comfortably 11-3, 11-1 in only twenty minutes.
Camilla, the newly crowned European champion, thus kept her unbeaten streak against Yasuko to a clean 5-0 record, all achieved in straight games.
Japanese doubles pair Yoshiko Iwata-Haruko Matsuda bowed out of the Uber Cup competition without a win after they were beaten 3-15, 7-15 by Denmark's world ranked no. 5 pair Helene Kirkegaard-Rikke Olsen.
In the third singles, Mette Sorensen was no match for Takako Ida. The service changed hands on less than ten occasions before the Danish player secured the winning point for her team with a 11-3, 11-1 score.
With victory in hand, the Danish players slowed down to let Japan win the next two matches.
Second doubles pair Chikako Nakayama-Naomi Murakami finally pulled one back for Japan after a 65 minutes battle against Majken Vange-Pernille Harder, winning 15-8, 4-15, 14©17.
Miho Tanaka then narrowed down the final score to 3-2 when she defeated Mette Pedersen 11-7, 13-10.
Danish coach Steen Pedersen said that avoiding China had been their main target all along.
"We went out into tonight's game with the objective of beating Japan as quick as possible.
"We knew we had a good chance of beating Japan as they were without their Asian Games champion Kanako Yonekura playing the second singles."
