Sunday, January 16, 2011

Badminton Tournaments

This article intends to familiarize newcomers to the badminton world, with an introduction to the most prestigious badminton tournaments at the world levels.

Most notable Badminton tournaments in the world:

World Championships:

This is the most prestigious badminton event in the world, the winner of which is hailed as the World champion.
The event is an individual level competition (meaning no team events) and participants can take part in the Mens and Womens singles, the Mens and womens doubles and the Mixed doubles event.

Earlier the event was conducted once in every 2 years, but from 2003 onwards the tournament is held every year (barring the exception of Olympic years, where Olympics champion is considered as the world champion)
This years (2011) world badminton championships is going to be held at London from 8-14 Aug, and at the same venue where the London 2012 Olympics badminton event will be conducted.

Super Series

The BWF Super Series badminton tournaments are a series of 12 events in a year where the top 32 players in the world are invited to participate. From the year 2011, these events have been further classified into a 2-tier system, the Super Series Premier (5 events) and the Super Series (7 events)

These super series events (that has a separate additional ranking system) then cluminates in a year-ending BWF Super Series Finals that takes place between the top 8 players in the world.

The Super series events for 2011 as published by BWF are as below:

Super Series & Super Series Premier events for 2011:

Proton Malaysia Super Series: 18-23 Jan
Victor Korea Super Series Premier: 25-30 Jan
Yonex All-England Super Series Premier: 8-13 Mar
India Super Series: 16-21 Mar
Singapore Super Series: 14-19 Jun
Djarum Indonesia Super Series Premier: 21-26 Jun
Li Ning China Masters Super Series: 13-18 Sep
Yonex Japan Super Series: 20-25 Sep
Denmark Super Series Premier: 18-23 Oct
French Super Series: 25-30 Oct
Yonex-Sunrise Hong Kong Super Series: 15-20 Nov
Li Ning China Open Super Series Premier: 22-27 Nov

BWF Super Series Finals: 14-18 Dec


Level 3 events: Grand Prix

The Badminton Grand Prix are level 3 events, that rank just below the Super Series events.

These Grand Prix events are individual badminton events where participants compete in the Singles (Men & Women) and Doubles (Mens, Women, and Mixed) events, but there is no team event at the Grand Prix.

Badminton Grand Prix and are comprised of two levels. The Grand Prix Gold, and the Grand Prix, the higher level being the Grand Prix Gold that offers more prize money to the winners.

As per the tournament calender released by the BWF (Badminton World Federation) there are going to be 11 Grand Prix Gold events, and 5 Grand Prix in the year 2011.

The 2011 Grand Prix events are listed below:

Yonex Open German Grand Prix Gold:              1st to 6th Mar-2011
Wilson Swiss Grand Prix Gold :                         15-20 Mar
Yonex Australian Open Grand Prix Gold:            5-10 Apr
Malaysia Open Grand Prix Gold:                         3-8 May
SCG Thailand Open Grand Prix Gold:                 7-12 June
Russian Open Grand Prix Gold:                         28-Jun to 3-Jul
Yonex/OCBC US Open Grand Prix Gold:         12-17 Jul
Canadian Open Grand Prix:                               19-24 Jul
Yonex Sunrise Vietnam Open Grand Prix:          23-28 Aug
Chinese Taipei Open Grand Prix Gold:                 6-11 Sep
Indonesia Open Grand Prix Gold:                       27-Sep to 2-Oct
Dutch Open Grand Prix:                                     11-16 Oct
Bitburger Open Grand Prix Gold:                       1-6 Nov
Macau Open Grand Prix Gold:                           29-Nov to 4-Dec
Victor Korea Open Grand Prix:                         6-11 Dec
India Open Grand Prix:                                     13-18 Dec             

(Reference: BWF website: Note* The above dates may change. Refer BWF site for updated details)


The above events are badminton individual events.

If we talk about the badminton team events or about multi-sport events, then the most prestigious tournaments are
the Olympics, the Asian Games (only Asian countries participate), the Commonwealth Games (only commonwealth countries participate), the Thomas Cup (men's team event), the Uber cup (Womens team event)
and the Sudirman Cup (mixed team event).

...will write more about these events in a future article...


Related Articles:

More information about the Sudirman Cup here.

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