No more qualifiers
BWF to ditch Thomas and Uber Cup qualifying and rely on rankings
PETALING JAYA: The sometimes contentious Thomas and Uber Cup qualifiers are to be ditched with the finalists determined solely by the teams’ overall world rankings in future.
This was revealed by Badminton Asia Confederation (BAC) secretary general Surasak Songvarakulan when asked about this year’s controversial format for the Asian Zone qualifying tournament in Macau.
“The BWF council, who met in December, have agreed in principle to do away with the qualifiers for the next Thomas-uber Cup. This decision goes across the board, involving all continents,” Surasak said in a telephone interview from Bangkok.
“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 format at the recently concluded Asian Zone qualifiers came under fire from several parties.
National coach Tan Kim Her said that the BAC could have skipped the meaningless playoffs to determine the third and fourth placing as teams involved had already booked their tickets for the Finals.
The additional group round robin playoffs among the 5th-8th teams also did not go down well with the teams because it was time consuming and exhausting for the players. Some teams were also unhappy that China, who had already qualified by virtue of being both defending champions and hosts, were allowed to compete in the Thomas Cup qualifying tournament.
“The BAC exco had agreed in 2009 to open the qualifiers to the defending champions and hosts because we wanted everyone to have a fair shot at earning qualifying points for the London Olympic Games.
“It was decided even before China won the title in 2010,” said Surasak.
“But I do agree that out format this year had made the earlier rounds more interesting than the semi-finals and even the final. This does not augur well for the game.
“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,” added Surasak, who is also a member of the Badminton World Federation (BWF) events committee.
BWF’S events manager M. Venugopal confirmed that the council had adopted a working paper submitted by the events committee on doing away with the Thomas-uber Cup qualifying tournament.
“That’s true but they were asked to come back with a more in-depth study and details on the revised format.
“It will be brought up again at the Finals in Wuhan,” said Venugopal.