Thursday is an important day of the week for many of us in many different ways. For some it’s the day after the ‘hump’ of the working week and one step closer to the weekend, for others and for many in Europe its actually pay day but for us badminton fans and nerds it’s the day the new world ranking list is published and a chance for us to analyse, debate and, more often than not, be left scratching our heads as to how the system actual works or does not work.
By Mark Phelan Photos: Badmintonphoto
I know that the majority of you out there will wholeheartedly agree with me when I say that the rest of the world trails in the wake of the Chinese super-tanker in every imaginable way when it comes to badminton. They have an endless ‘gravy train’ of talent constantly bubbling to the surface and, taking a wild guess, I would be comfortable in saying that if they probably wanted to and needed to Chinese athletes could occupy the top 20 of every word ranking list or at least the majority of the positions.
With this taken as almost gospel, why is it then we find ourselves this week (week 48 2010) with not one Chinese player in the top 5 of the men’s singles, the best Chinese women is at number 3 in women’s singles, Cai and Fu are only number 6 in men’s doubles and women’s and mixed doubles appear to be forgotten about at present in China.
Yes, I can hear some of you screaming from here with the age-old arguments that oh this is just the pre-Olympic period and the Chinese are trying out new pairings maybe plus we all know that in China the focus is primarily on the major titles and world rankings mean nothing to them. Yes, I agree with these arguments but my question right back is simple this, is this good for the sport in general? It is my belief we need the top players at the top of the rankings on a consistent basis as our sport needs personalities and superstars to drive the development and to attract the masses to our sport and as a consequence move badminton up the ladder of popularity.
To get back to the issue of the world ranking list, it’s clear that the players who perform most frequently on the Super Series tour in particular tend to gravitate towards the top of the list. Players such as Peter Gade, Lee Chong Wei (pictured top) and Taufik Hidayat should be saluted in their efforts as they tend to support the ‘global’ tour on a regular basis. In the case of any of the three mentioned, you can be pretty sure that if they are missing from any tournament it is most likely due to injury. These, in my opinion are real ambassadors for badminton but I’m sure you all will agree that not one Chinese player in the top five is almost farcical.
This week Taufik is number 3 in the world ranking list with a massive 14 tournaments played while the greatest player in the history of the game Lin Dan (pictured bottom) of China is at number 7 with exactly half the number of tournaments under his belt that Taufik has.
When we look at tennis as a comparison, the top players in the sport in any given year are perched at the top of the world rankings. This week, for example, Nadal and Federer are sitting pretty on top of the rankings with 21 tournaments played each but what is more interesting is that the players below them all have a similar volume of tournaments played so it is clear that the pitch is indeed level in the sport of tennis when it comes to their ranking system.
I think most of us have a clear idea as to the workings of both the badminton world ranking system and tennis; my question to the powers that be is why do we not have a system that encourages all the top players to participate in a consistent number of tournaments each year? Why do we have a ranking system and a points system so out of date that all you have to do is turn up to most of the 12 super series events per year, and feasibly lose in the first round of each, and still manage to get enough points to be invited to the windfall that is the Super Series Finals. How can you be rewarded for losing on this scale?
This article is an article of questions rather than answers as you can be fully sure that anything I say will fall on the deafest of ears of the upper echelons of world badminton. But it is my opinion that this needs to be changed and changed radically if we are to see our game develop. We need to see all our top players compete, where possible, at the same events each year. We need this in order to produce full and meaningful tournaments, we need this so the players further down the rankings have the chance to play against the top players, we also need this to convince the rest of the world that badminton is a serious sport and a sport worth playing not a sport where players can, and I don’t say this lightly, can actually be rewarded for losing.
Finally and to lighten the mood just a tad, I ask you the readers if you were to analysis the world’s top 10 of each of the 5 disciplines and if the playing field was level and players, within reason, played an equal volume of tournaments per year, who in your opinion would be the top 10 in each discipline? Just post in the comment field below and let’s enjoy the debate.
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I agree that there is a misrepresentation at the top of the World Rankings, however i think Badminton and tennis should not be compared. They are completely different sports in so many ways, for one the way that players prepare. Badminton is based around a squad structure where players can get their match practice through sparring at training. Tennis players all have their own personal coaches, and while they may use certain sparring players in training, they need to play tournaments in order to get match practice and find form.
Spain and France all have many players in the top 50 of men’s tennis, but you don’t see all the players from each contry living and training together in the same “squad”.
Also the fact that tennis players derive their earnings from prize money means they have full control over what and how many events they enter. Where as the majority of badminton players are paid a wage by their associations, and therfore must enter the tournaments that their employee gives approval for. These associations (eg China) are not focused on individual players, but the results of the nation, and if they can achieve that by staying at home in preperation for major events, then they will.
It is foolish to comapre tennis and badminton, like apples and oranges. We need to focus on the things that can improve our sport specifically, and stop trying to model ourselves on things that dont apply to our sport. While associations control players there will always be misrepresentations of the rankings
“While associations control players there will always be misrepresentations of the rankings”
I fully agree with this arguement and this is another debate I would love to have and discuss. The merits of federation control over players… FOR and AGAINST
MD :
1. FU HAIFENG / CAI YUN
2. Markis Kido / Hendra Setiawan
3. Lee Yongdae / Jung jaesung
4. Koo kienkeat / Tan boonheong
5.Mathias boe / Carsten mogensen
6.CHAI BIAO / ZHANG NAN
7. Koo sung hyun / Yoo yoon seong
8.GUO ZHEN DONG / XU CHEN
9.Anthony clark / Nathan robertson
10. Fang chieh min / Lee shengmu
WD :
1. YU YANG / WANG XIAOLI
2. CHENG SHU / ZHAO YUNLEI
3. MA JIN / ZHONG QIANXIN
4. PAN PAN / TIAN QING
5. Chien yu chin / Cheng wen hsing
6.Ha jung eun / Jung kyung eun
7.Miyuki Maeda / suetsuna satoko
8.Zhang Dan / Zhang Zhibo
9.Petya nedelcheva / Anastassia russkikh
10.Fujii mizuki / Reika kakiwa
XD ;
1. TAO JIAMING / TIAN QING
2. ZHANG NAN / ZHAO YUNLEI
3. HE HANBIN / MA JIN
4.Thomas laybourn / Kamilla ritter juhl
5.Songphon / Kunchala
6.Robert mateuziak / Nadiezda zieba
7.Joachim f. nielsen / Christina pedersen
8.Chen hung ling / cheng wen hsing
9.Fang chieh min / chien yu chin
10.Nathan robertson / Jenny walwork
Good article and an interesting read. May I ask why LCW and LD’s names are highlighted in orange though?
Hi Nik,
The highlighting is a just a standard badzine procedure. Anywhere we use an image and the player is included in the article we simply reference the player to the image. If you look back over any Badzine articles you will see this.
I think the BWF must change rules for player.
Like LD decide walkover last night, just make the people waste money couldn,t him play.
Maybe the new rankings are meant to encourage the Chinese to start turning up to other events instead of focusing on the major titles. After all, they clearly have enough funding by their own government (unlike many other countries) and man power for the task!
I think the rankings should not only reflect ordinal ability of the players but also their commitment to promoting the sport i.e. by playing a wide range of tournaments.
I’m inclined to agree with Badminton Supporter on this one.
And I think the judgment on the Chinese is a tad too harsh. I don’t think it’s fair or of any basis to say that the Chinese are any less a good ambassador of the sport because of this, especially when come next Thursday, we will see the Chinese dominating the MS and WS top 5 rankings – thanks to a good crop of players skipping the China Open (as it’s hard to do well in China? – is this then respectful to the sport?) To not highlight this fact I’d question the objectivity of this article.
I guess it’s unclear what exactly anchors this article’s dissent? When world rankings do not exactly work to a player’s favour – other than the minimum rank to qualify for the main draw of the Super Series, we’ve seen enough of a better rank rarely equates to a more favourable draw. So we’ve to assess what’s left to motivate players to climb the ranks before casting the first stone. I don’t think it’s as much of a system flaw as it is an execution flaw if a rank is reduced to a mere number.
Off my head, the only sport where the “weekly” ranking has value is F1.
Well if you have an annual World Championship event, if you can become The World Champion by ‘ensuring’ that you peak at the right time to participate in a 5-day event, what’s in it to strain your body and drain your resources to travel all year round to attend all events? Or in other words, does the opportunity cost or “returns” measure up for sitting at world number 1 for 52 weeks but not bag a single title at all in a year? Perhaps it appeases the players’ sponsors, but that’s about it.
So I think it’s an overstatement to say that players XYZ are better ambassadors because they make more appearances on the ‘global’ tour – it is arguably a necessity if you’re an independent player or if you get to pocket a big part of what you earn on tour – and if this so accounts for the trend in tennis. Until badminton becomes as commercially viable as tennis is – whose responsibility is this we’ve to ask? – this article’s suggestion/opinion will remain an utopian ideal at best.
Even so, Federer, Nadal and Roddick have recently put in a joint-appeal for the ITF to cut back on the number of major tournaments. In response, ITF warned them to cut back on the number of exhibition games they play!?! I guess all these just reveal an ignorance of people in power, and so, I’d think there is plenty of room to offer understanding to why players (or rather their associations in a bid to protect the ‘longevity’ of their playing careers) are selective about events.
As a spectator, I’m not fuss about ranks – it’s about seeing players put on a good display in every game, no? It’s a matter of perspective – I won’t go down hard on the doubles rankings – the Chinese were never regular top 5s in the XD and MD, they go in and out – but it has actually impressed me the way the Chinese have promptly reassembled their WD pairings in response to their Uber Cup defeat and it shows the versatility of their training program. These transitions take time.
Firstly thank you all for your initial input on this issue. Debate is key on issues like this and I know that there will be many different opinions and arguments. I may have my opinion but I also can understand and also fully respect the opinions of others. Already there have been points raised that will serve to maybe smooth over the rough edges of my opinion and hopefully by the end of it I will have a greater knowledge of the feeling from all corners of the globe.
Everyone that has posted here so far have included many valid arguments and maybe with a ‘think tank’ like this we can find a happy medium. But to me debate is key and who better to debate than the people here on Badzine who are amongst the most knowledgeable and passionate about the sport we love.
So thank you all for you input so far and I look forward to further debate and in particular I look forward to been educated even more on this issue.
Mark
A world ranking system is the only way to indicate a player’s quality, so I’m a supporter of a regularly updated world ranking.
But I have to admit that the ranking in its current form doesn’t show the real quality of every player. I think that, for example, Yanjiao Jang from China is a better shuttler than Juliane Schenk (Germany), although she’s ranked below the German.
I suppose a reformation of the calculation system for the ranking:
The players earn points for their appearance/their results at tournaments around the world like it is the case today, BUT the points are divided by the number of tournaments in which the players participated. If you do this, you get the following result for the men’s singles ranking (top 15):
1. Lee Chong Wei
2. Lin Dan
3. Chen Jin
4. Peter Gade
5. Chen Long
6. Bao Chunlai
7. Taufik Hidayat
8. Boonsak Ponsana
9. Kenichi Tago
10. Tien Minh Nguyen
11. Jan Jorgensen
12. Rajiv Ouseph
13. Joachim Persson
14. Hu Yun
15. Marc Zwiebler
I think that this ranking is much more realistic than the current world ranking. I’m looking forward to see what oyu think!
Hi Nils,
Wow you must have put some huge effort into calculating this ‘average’ list. I must say I would agree almost in its entirety with this ranking list you calculated but I think the core issue here is finding that ‘level playing field’ needed to make sure that no matter what system is used the best players end up on top of that list but end up there by virtue of playing as many tournaments as the player further down the list.
The BWF are starting to address this by introducing the mandatory premier super series events where all top players must attend and if they don’t I believe they get a hefty fine for not turning up. But 4 events is not enough in my opinion.
Mark
I think we all missed the fact that China is doing more than most countries to push badminton forward. The Chinese Badminton League does this. Lin Dan along with some of his other teammates also played in the Chinese Badminton League this year along with the BWF super series events.
Denmark is another country that has a very strong domestic league, but they still support international competition through participation in the super series events. It would be nice if china did the same.
On the other hand, the way China grows badminton domestically with over a billion people you can argue grows the sport in terms of players and dollars more than the international BWF super series grows badminton. I’m not saying china’s domestic market for badminton is bigger currently, but that it’s able to achieve stronger growth by it’s domestic focus.
These are very valid points but I do ask the question how many of the top Chinese players actually want a domestic league and how much of their participation is driven by the involvement of the main sponsor.
I do remember some rumblings coming from China about the player’s lack of support for the league initially.
If it were me I would love to see a world league almost like the champions league in soccer. Say 4 clubs from China, with clubs from all the top nations competing so European clubs get to play against top Asian clubs. A proper promotion and relegation system which would act as an incentive to smaller clubs and nations to improve.
Just a thought
Mark
I am fairly certain badminton used a “Average” based ranking system in the past and moved away from it for several reasons. While a ranking system using averages sounds good, it actually discourages players with a high ranking from participating in tournaments, as they try to protect rather than build their ranking. Players actually get punsihed for playing more tournaments.
This ranking system would also discourage the top players from playing in anything outside of the events with the highest points. Depending on their points, a top players ranking may actually go down if they play in, and win, a low graded tournament. If you look at the current rankings Lee Chong Wei has over 80,000 points,this means his average would actually go down if he won a Gold Grand Prix event. If this was the case why would he even enter?
This type of system will find the most cosistent player in the world, but this may not be the best player, which i am sure everyone will agree is the purpose of any World Ranking
My MS Top 10
1. Lin Dan
2. Lee Chong Wei
3. Chen Jin
4. Peter Gade
5. Taufik Hidyat
6. Bao Chunlai
7. Chen Long
8. Boonsak Ponsana
9. Sony Dwi Kuncoro
10. Park Sung Hwan
There are so many team events in badminton on national and international level.
We have to accept that badminton is not as individualized as tennis. Therefore world ranking is of less importance. Who cares about rankings in fooball? Does this prevent football from being popular?
What we are really missing, is a professional press-work. We have so few sources of information about badminton events. Badzine is of coures a big improvement in this respect, but this is not enough.
After a major tennis event you will see press informations immediately after the match. Badzine will report with a latency time of one to two days and is nevertheless market leader.
Badminton will not be able to take advantage of its popularity potential as long as we are cutting off people from information about badmiton.
My TOP 10
MS:
1. Lin Dan
2. Lee Chongwei
3. Taufik Hidayat
4. Chen Jin
5. Chen Long
6. Park Sung Hwan
7. Bao Chunlai
8. Peter HG
9. Sonny DK
10. Boonsak Ponsana
WS:
1. Wang Shixian
2. Wang Xin
3. Jiang Yanjiao
4. Wang Yihan
5. Tine Baun
6. Saina Nehwal
7. Juliane Schenk
8. Intanon Ratchanok
9. Wang Lin
10.Bae Younjoo
10.
MD :
1. Cai Yun / Fu Haifeng
2. Markis Kido / Hendra Setiawan
3. Lee Yongdae / Jung jaesung
4. Koo kienkeat / Tan boonheong
5. Mathias boe / Carsten mogensen
6. Koo sung hyun / Yoo yoon seong
7. Fang chieh min / Lee shengmu
8. Zhang Nan / Chai Biao
7. Guo Zhendong / Xu Chen
9. Howard Bach Tony Gunawan
WD :
1. Yu Yang/WangXiaoli
2. Ma Jin / Zhong Qianhin
3. Cheng Shu / Zhao Yunlei
4. Pan Pan/Tian Qing
5. Chien yu chin / Cheng wen hsing
6. Ha jung eun / Jung kyung eun
7. Meilana Jauhari / Gresya Polli
8. Miyuki Maeda / suetsuna satoko
9. Christina Pedersen / Kamilla Rhytter Juhl
10.Petya nedelcheva / Anastassia russkikh
XD ;
1. Tao Jiaming/Tian Qing
2. Zhang Nan/Zhao Yunlei
3. Joachim nielsen / Christina pedersen
4. Thomas laybourn / Kamilla ritter juhl
5. Lee shengmu / chien yu chin
6. Tontowi Ahmad/ Lilyana Natsir
7. Hendra Setiawan / Anastasia Ruskikh
8. Robert Mateusak / nadiezda Zieba
9. He hanbin/majin
10. Nathan Robertson/Jenny Wallwork
Before we blame the ranking system and do something about it, lets first ask ourselves what is the definition of a top badminton player? Once a definition gets the majority agreement, only then the ranking system be formulated to reflect that.
Basically there are 2 very obvious perspective, 1.) consistently make it at least to the semi finals of every tournament and 2.) be selective about tournament and win. Maybe there are 1 or 2 more perspectives. Back to the obvious, it is the case of whether who better deserve the world No 1; Lee Chong Wei or Lin Dan. LCW fits nicely in the 1.) perspective and LD the other. Many says LD is better than LCW because everytime LCW beat LD, LD revenge by beating LCW twice. While we cannot deny this happened many times, we must realise LCW plays in many more tournament than LD. Imagine LD play in as much tournament as LCW, will he be as consistent? I don’t know because this doesn’t happen before in the last 2 years. LCW is like a 800m runner while LD is a 100m sprinter. Back to the basic is to set the definition right before we revamp the ranking system.
I think a ranking system is merely an administration tool for many purposes. e.g. for seeding, for qualification to certain competitions, etc… Even in Tennis, look at Safina, she’s the once #1 ranked tennis WS player (just last year??), yet never won a major, and just been thrashed with 2 sets of 6:0 in Round 1 of Aussie Open yesterday. From the most basic common sense, could anyone consider her as a #1 player in view of such?
I agree it would be difficult to systematically define a top player. Unlike team sports like soccer (e.g. EPL), we could not have a Premier League for the top 20 players and fight for round robin matches in a year’s season to define who’s the most winnable champion.
But from technical point of view, we could use the similar theory to see who would be the top player (disregard of what kinds of competitions they won) on a combat mode. If we do have such a league, who would your think shall be able to win most matches?
If you are to answer this question, probably you would look at their head-to-head history, or within the past 1-2 or 3 years for an answer. I don’t know if there would be anyone be able to have a statistics of such H2H results, but instantly we would say LD, LCW, PG, CJ/TH shall be the no.1 to 4 or 5.
It is all about incentives.
The current ranking points allocation actually is not appropriately reflecting the differentiation amongst winners at various stages. For instance for a Super Series, the winner takes 9200 pts, losing finalist takes 7800 pts, SF losers could take 6420 pts whilst QF losers take 5040 pts. So 2 loss in QFs could have more ranking pts than 1 Champion. That’s why LD wouldn’t mind to withdraw at 2 QFs end last year.
The award money in each competition is not attractive to all top players. This is a commercial problem. Note that BWF is trying to do something by having Premier Super Series this year with more prize money. Let’s see if this works.