 "Badminton")
With the India Open beginning on January 16, 2024, at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex’s KD Jadhav Hall, the race to the Paris Olympics for Badminton players will intensify. It is the first Super 750 BWF tournament with 11,000 points up for grabs.
The positioning of the tournament is such that it falls right after the Malaysian Open and is the only Super 750 tournament till the French Open in March. With April 30, 2024, being the deadline for the Olympic qualification window, also known as Race To Paris, the India Open becomes crucial.
What is Race to Paris Badminton Rankings?
In every Olympic year, apart from the usual rankings of the players by the Badminton World Federation (BWF), a special Race to the Olympic (Paris in this case) rankings are prepared. The Race to Paris was given a timeline of 12 months and within the time frame of May 1, 2023, to April 30, 2024, the rankings will be decided as per the usual BWF tournament ranking system. This ranking list is called the Badminton Race to Paris ranking.
How is each tournament ranked?
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According to BWF, the World Tour has the highest points 13,000 for the winner while Super 1000 tournaments, which include the Malaysian Open, All England Championship, Indonesia Open, and China Open have 12,000 points for the winners. Similarly, the ladder goes downward with Super 100 tournaments fetching the winner 5,500 points.
How does Race To Paris decide which players go forward?
A total of 35 Men’s Singles and equal Women’s Singles slots are up for grabs for all the National Olympic Committees (NOCs). The NOCs, which have more than one player ranked 1-16 in the Race To Paris rankings, will get two direct slots in the singles event.
Similarly, there are 16 slots each available in Men’s, Women’s and Mixed Doubles for each NOC in the Olympics. If a NOC has more than two pairings ranked 1-8 in each of the doubles categories in the Race to Paris rankings, then they will get two direct entries in that category into the Paris Olympics.
Which are the Indians currently in contention for direct qualification?
HS Prannoy
HS Prannoy is currently ranked 8th in the Race to Paris rankings with 69, 214 points to his name. Prannoy won the Malaysian Masters and made it to the semi-final of the World Championships, claiming a bronze medal. With a bronze at the Asian Games 2023, he has secured a healthy lead and is most likely to secure direct qualification.
Lakshya Sen
Sen, who has 50, 140 points needs to win big to make sure he keeps himself in the top 16 of the Race to Paris rankings. He is currently ranked 17th but is only 2,190 points behind Lee Cheuk Yiu of Hong Kong. With a semi-final entry in either the Malaysian or All England Open giving him at least 8,400 points and that in the Indian or French Open 7,700 points, the world number 16 can very well enter the top 10 of the Race to the Paris rankings.
Other than these two, Kidambi Srikanth is placed 24th on the list with no semi-final entry and just 43,653 points. Only if he is able to be at his level best and secure victories in at least two of the four 750 or above tournaments available, he will most likely miss out on an Olympic berth.
Sat-Chi in the list
Satwik Sairaj Rankireedy and Chirag Shetty are placed fifth in the Men's Doubles Race to Paris rankings and would sail through easily.
Tanisha Castro and Ashwani Ponappa are ranked 14th in the women’s doubles while PV Sindhu is ranked 12th in the women’s singles. They will qualify as the first-choice players from India. But the country could not have more than one representation in doubles categories as there are no other pairs currently ranked 1-8 in the Race to Paris rankings. Apart from Sindhu, there are no other women’s singles players ranked between 1-16 in the Race to the Paris rankings either.
Will PV Sindhu participate in the India Open?
PV Sindhu is on a break as she is recovering from her injury that occurred in October last year. She will miss the Malaysian Open and the Indian Open as well. However, she will have the opportunity to maintain her ranking in the top 16 in Race to Paris when she makes her comeback in the Badminton Asia Championships in mid-February. She is now with a new coach, Indonesia’s Agus Dwi Santoso, after parting ways with another Indonesian Muhammad Hafiz Hashim.
