POLL – The most promising badminton rookies of 2013

2012 saw a whole host of teenaged badminton stars make their first – or in some cases, merely their most recent – marks on the international badminton stage.  With so many of them moving out of the junior category in 2013, we thought we’d like to get your opinion on which of these show the most prommise.

Chinese Taipei’s Tai Tzu Ying had already set the badminton world on fire, and even before losing her junior eligibility on New Year’s Eve.  However, she is far from the only player of her vintage to have already made some noise internationally.  As Tai has already been to the world’s top 10, and won two Superseries titles, we considered leaving her off the list altogether but instead, the poll will allow you to choose two players such that everyone can make a less obvious choice as well.

Two things to keep in mind when reviewing the list are:

1. Players born after 1994, such as PV Sindhu, Ratchanok Intanon, Busanan Ongbumrungpan, and Nozomi Okuhara, are still eligible to play in junior events and they have been excluded from this poll -which is on players who are only in their first year out of juniors – simply to keep the number of choices low.
2. Ineligibility to play juniors is, for the purposes of this poll, based on the Badminton World Federation (BWF) standards.  Some or all of the players listed below may still be considered eligible as juniors to compete this year in events such as the Australian Youth Olympic Festival or Badminton Europe’s 2012-2013 Junior Circuit

If you feel another player absolutely must be added to the list, or you wish to expand on the choices you’ve made, please add to the comments section below.

[poll id=”20″]