BWF to determine future Thomas and Uber Cups finalists by cumulative world rankings points
The severe criticism on the format of Asian Zone qualifiers has bent Badminton World Federation (BWF) to determine the Thomas and Uber Cups finalists only on the basis of cumulative world rankings points in future.
The Surasak Songvarakulan, a member of the Badminton World Federation (BWF) events committee, disclosed the information on being questioned about the contentious format of Thomas and Uber Cups preliminaries in Macau.
Surasak said, “Instead of having a qualifying tournament, the teams for the Finals from every continent will be decided by their overall ranking based on their three top singles players and two top doubles pairs.”
The BWF and the Badminton Asia Confederation(BAC) had to face the music earlier, first for allowing China to play in the qualifying round and then for designing an exhausting playoff round.
The Japan head coach Joo Bong smashed Badminton World Federation for giving China a green signal, the Malaysian coach Tan Kim Her also slammed Badminton Asia Confederation for coming up with the hectic and unnecessary playoff round in the Thomas Cup and
Uber Cup preliminaries.
The teams participated in playoff round with under strength squads as mostly teams had no chance to qualify for the finals, to be held in Wuhan, China from May 20-27.
The top ranked shuttlers, instead of sweating in the playoff round, preferred to stay on benches and rest for the coming series of European badminton events. This made the final round uninteresting.
The Surasak, who is also secretary general of the BAC, defended the decision of introducing that much criticised playoff round.
He said, “The introduction of playoffs for the 5th-8th teams was to give everyone a fair opportunity to qualify. Indonesia had requested for an elimination format in the playoffs but we decided that it wouldn’t be fair to all. Anyway, we don’t have to worry
about the format of the qualifying tournament because there won’t be one in the near future.”
The Badminton World Federation has instructed its events management committee to come up with detailed homework on this issue to rectify the faults in the plan that troubled the BWF member countries.
However, this new merit for the finalists will really affect the chances of comparatively low ranked teams in badminton world who by playing such playoff rounds had an extra chance to qualify in the Thomas Cup and Uber Cup finals.
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