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AKARTA: Indonesia’s mixed doubles duo Tontowi Ahmad and Liliyana Natsir face a do-or-die group qualifier match against world number one pair Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei on Friday, where victory would earn them a spot in the semifinals of the season-ending Li Ning BWF World Superseries Finals in Liuzhou, China.

On Thursday, Tontowi and Liliyana lost a grueling 54-minute battle, 21-17, 7-21, 20-22, against world No. 2 Xu Chen and Ma Jin of China, despite a convincing 21-10, 21-12 win over Robert Blair and Gabrielle White of Great Britain in the group opener on the previous day.

The loss dented the world No. 4 pair’s hopes of reaching the final stages of the World Superseries Finals, as only the top two in each group can advance.

Despite having one remaining match to play, Simon Santoso failed to advance from the group stage of the men’s singles, after losing his first two matches. He lost to world top Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia 10-21, 15-21 on Thursday and 13-21, 9-21 to Peter Hoeg Gade of Denmark, a day earlier.

Taufik Hidayat also failed to advance after loosing 12-21, 19-21 to Lin Dan of China in the Thursday match, which is also deciding match for the experienced shuttler, after he was beaten 21-19, 19-21, 7-21 by Kenichi Tago of Japan earlier.

After losing their opener against Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen of Denmark, men’s doubles pair M. Ahsan and Bona Septano also badly need to win their late match on Thursday against Jung Jae-sung and Lee Yong-dae to keep their final hopes alive. The competition runs until Dec. 18.