Vietnamese badminton players will for the first time compete at the World Mixed Team Championships, called the Sudirman Cup 2011, to be held May 22-29 in China’s Shandong Province.

The 33 teams from around the world participating in the 12th edition of the contest are divided into four groups competing in five categories namely men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles.

Under regulations set by the Badminton World Federation (BWF), the participating teams will be ranked based on the overall strength of their teams.

Accordingly, Vietnamese players are in Group 3B along with Bulgaria, Sweden and South Africa.

The teams will play round-robin matches and the best team in the group will compete with the best team from Group 3A for the 21st position. Group 3A consists of Peru, Czech Republic, Australia and Slovakia.

Vietnam has world number seven Nguyen Tien Minh, but none of the other players in the team have made it to the top 100.