Badminton News: The participants for the 2023 BWF World Tour Finals were recently announced by the Badminton World Federation. Surprisingly, the Indian shuttlers failed to qualify for the lucrative tournament, which is also a year-end event.
The last time India participated was in the 2010 edition, when the tournament was titled BWF Super Series Finals. Since then, Olympic medalists Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu or former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth have represented India in the restructured BWF Super Series or BWF World Tour Finals (since 2018).
Double Olympic medalist Sindhu, who is currently undergoing rehabilitation following her injury, has had a poor season this year. His inconsistency and first round elimination saw the former world number 2 fall out of the top 10 in April this year.
HS Prannoy, India’s best male badminton player, is currently ranked eighth in the BWF Rankings and 12th in the BWF World Tour Rankings. He won a bronze medal at the Badminton World Championships in Denmark.
The most surprising news for Indian fans was that men’s doubles stars Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty failed to meet entry standards for the season-ending tournament.
Despite three BWF titles and a rise to a career-best ranking of world number 1, neither will be seen in action in Hangzhou this month. In the cut-off period, i.e. November 21, Satwik and Chirag ranked 13th by collecting 69,240 points, even though they were ranked fifth in the world at the time.
The qualification criteria takes into account the top 14 tournaments and as a result, the current world No. 2 pair failed as they were eliminated four times in the first round and the same number of times in the second round.
Who are the players qualified for the 2023 BWF World Tour Finals?
The BWF World Tour Finals is a prestigious tournament for all the top-ranked badminton players in the world in five different categories: men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles.
The qualification criteria for this extravagant event is based on the ranking points available at different levels such as the Super 1000, Super 750 and Super 500 events.
The top seven badminton players in each category as well as the most recent Badminton World Championship winners in each event will qualify for the BWF World Tour Finals. The BWF China Masters 2023 is the final qualifying event for the end of the year.
Article Tag: BWF, India, BWF World Tour Finals 2023, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, Chirag Shetty
