Kuala Lumpur: The Nimibutr Arena in Bangkok, Thailand has become the new venue for the 2022 Badminton World Championships (BWF) World Tour Finals, which was previously scheduled to be held in Guangzhou, China, from December 14 to December 18, 2022.
In addition to the change of location, BWF also announced that the tournament will take place from November 7 to November 11, which is one week earlier than the schedule in Guangzhou.
“After discussing with the Chinese Badminton Association (CBA), BWF agreed to change the location of the venue following the various challenges of the current pandemic situation (COVID-19),” said BWF in its statement.
According to BWF, the World Tour Finals which offer total prize money of US$1.5 million (approximately RM6.82 million), will finalize the list of players who qualify for the year-end event on November 22, two days after the finals of the ongoing Australian Open.
Based on the BWF regulation, at the end of the BWF World Tour circuit, the top eight players/pairs in the BWF World Tour standing of each discipline, with a maximum of two players/pairs from the same country, are required to play in the BWF World Tour Finals.
Here are the Malaysian players who currently in the top eight positions of the BWF World Tour Finals rankings: men’s doubles: No. 3 Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi, No. 8 Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik; women’s doubles: No. 7 Vivia Hoo/Lim Chiew Sien, No. 8 Pearly Tan/Thinaah Muralitharan; mixed doubles: No. 4 Goh Soon Huat/Shevon Jemie Lai, No. 5 Tan Kian Meng/Lai Pei Jing.
If Lee Zii Jia who is currently ranked No. 9 in the men’s singles category of the BWF World Tour Finals rankings could advance to the Australian Open semi-finals in Sydney this week, he’ll qualify for the Bangkok event.
