I read an interesting article about BWF greed in the New Straits Times to push players to play too many games. Here is a link to the article: I tend to disagree with the statement. Let’s discuss it.

For top players, I believe that in the top 15 in singles disciplines, players must participate in all 4 Super 1000 Championships, including 6 out of 8 Super 750 Championships and 2 Super 500 Championships. There are 12 mandatory competitions in total. Moreover, for world ranking calculations, a top 12 competition score in the calendar year was selected. It matches these 12 mandatory matches very well.

These 12 tournaments are necessary for a player to maintain his or her ranking, so he or she will be required to participate in these 12 games to maintain the ranking. Dropting out of the top ranking will give you the flexibility to skip the race. But any player eager to reach the highest ranking will push it by participating in more games.

There is always a lucky element in the game. Sometimes the draw will compete with you as early as possible and you get the Goddess of Nemesis. Sometimes, you feel uncomfortable that day. Sometimes logistical challenges can lead to chaos. Or, it may be just a difficult luck for natural behavior. Players may not be able to perform well on the day.

Due to the element of luck, the player then has to play a tourist with at least 12 more tourists. From a statistical point of view, having 50% of the buffer makes sense, so it means playing in 18 tournaments to get 12 good results. Just check out the following rankings: Here are:

Shi Yuqi and Axelsen are the only players in the top 10 men’s singles. We know that Shia Yuqi was struggling with illness and injuries in the second half of last year. Axelsen is recovering from his back surgery. In addition, each person holds an average of 18 games per year. That’s normal.

Even the top ten women’s singles rankings show similar stories. SE Young has appeared due to fatigue or injury. Yamaguchi just returned from injury. Chen Yufei took a break and just came back in February this year. Tunjung is injured and still out. Carterton was injured, too. The other five players also participated in an average of 18 games.

So from this quick snapshot it seems that it’s not a problem to get top players to play at a minimum of 12 games. One problem I think is that too many top tournaments are too close to each other. I mentioned this in an earlier blog entry:

I feel like playing many intermediate matches at the Super 500 level, and Super 300 level is good for badminton. It is logical that top players only need to participate in top games, but they are top players after all. A large number of intermediate games offer opportunities for new players. If there are too few intermediate games, we will risk always seeing top players win everything.

With more intermediate games, young players have the opportunity to gain experience and get rankings. When they finally collect enough ranking points to play in the top game, they will also gain a lot of game experience and hopefully be able to fight the top players well. Often, we see a mismatch between top players and upcoming young players. The Bay does not have skills, physical strength or endurance. This is in the competition experience.

In the past, we have Lee Chong Wei and Lin Dan won the Super 1000 Malaysia Open at 35 in 2018 and 2019 respectively. After all, this could be an anomaly, and it was Lee Chong Wei and Lin Dan…but the point is that being that senior player still dominates the top game, it just means that young players don’t have the chance to gain valuable experience.

Since then, things have improved a lot as we now see more young players emerging and winning intermediate games. Sometimes, young players can win top games as well. This can only be good for badminton.

Of the many things that I disagree with BWF do, I completely agree with this question. To make badminton grow, we need more intermediate games. Top players must be required to compete in top-level matches, otherwise, they have only 1000 names but their quality is 500.

However, the problem of fixed congestion must be solved. Regaining the Super 1000 and Super 750 Championships is not a good idea. It will reduce the quality of subsequent matches.

That’s it.

Until the next update, Eat well, get a lot of rest, and then keep badminton!