No Indian at BWF World Tour Finals reflects on poor 2023, situation needs action -

If one wants a fair assessment of a form guide, for a badminton player, the HSBC Race to Finals is a better tool than the BWF World Rankings. The former gives a better account of how a player has performed throughout the year, while the BWF rankings are not really dependent on that. The classic example is the disparity between the rankings and Race to final rankings of the Indian players. As per the BWF rankings, India has a few players in the top 10 in the world, but are nowhere when it comes to qualifying for the BWF World Tour Finals. Mind you, only the top 8 in each category, in the race to finals, qualify for the year-ending tournament. And BWF rankings are of no significance here whatsoever.

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Indian Shuttlers Face Risk of Not Qualifying for BWF World Tour Finals

Player	BWF Ranking	Road to Final Ranking
PV Sindhu	11	15
HS Prannoy	8	17
Kidambi Srikanth	17	23
Lakshya Sen	23	16
Satwik-Chirag	5	13

2023, mostly has been a struggle for the Indian players, where good performances and titles have eluded them largely. PV Sindhu, the two-time Olympic medalist is no. 11 in the rankings as of now, but due to her poor returns on the tour, she lies in the 15th spot in the Race to Finals ranking. She made first-round exits in as many as seven tournaments and did not win a single title. Though out because of a knee injury, she would have found it extremely tough to qualify for the Finals.

Then we have HS Prannoy, India’s best shuttler in singles by a mile this year. He sits pretty on WR-8, but when it comes to Race to Finals, he is a lowly 17th, even below Lakshya Sen. Prannoy has won just one title this year, the Malaysia Masters, and in the last few weeks, after the Asian Games, his performances have taken a dip.

Talking about the former WR-1 men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, the duo have blown hot and cold in crucial matches. Despite being the WR-5 at the moment, they lie 13th in the road to finals rankings. Satwik-Chirag won the Swiss Open, Indonesia Open, and Korea Open, but also exited from quite a few tournaments in the first and second rounds. Now they face the risk of not making it to the BWF World Tour Finals.

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India Historically at BWF World Tour Finals

Only one Indian has won the tournament ever, and that is PV Sindhu back in 2018 when she defeated Nozomi Okuhara in the final. Having said that, there hasn’t been a season, as far as one can remember, that any Indian has not qualified for the competition. That might be a sad reality in 2023. In 2018, apart from Sindhu, Sameer Verma had qualified in the men’s singles and surprised everyone with his semis finish where he lost to Shi Yuqi.

In 2019, once again, Sindhu kept the Indian flag flying high and qualified for the Finals. None of the other Indians qualified. Come 2020, Kidambi Srikanth made the cut in men’s singles, along with Sindhu. There was more representation in the 2021 edition as Srikanth and Lakshya Sen also made it to the Finals. PV Sindhu entered once again in the women’s singles, while Satwik-Chirag entered in men’s doubles. In the women’s doubles, Sikki Reddy and Ashwini Ponnappa also qualified. Sindhu lost in the final to An Se Young.

Lastly, in 2022, it was only HS Prannoy who was present at the Finals. So if no Indian manages to enter the BWF World Tour Finals this year, it is just reflective of our woes in the sport, that must be addressed immediately.