Kuala Lumpur: Despite being able to pull off strong comebacks by defeating world No. 34 Lee Dong Keun, world No. 4 Kidambi Srikanth, and world No. 5 Son Wan Ho at the 2015 Sudirman Cup, it’s very confusing to see Lee Chong Wei to still remained at world No. 46 in the latest Badminton World Federation (BWF) rankings that updated on Thursday, May 21, 2015.
“Picture 1” above showed Lee Chong Wei was ranked 46, with total points of 27631 (arrow B) in last week’s rankings (arrow A). In “Picture 2”, Lee Chong Wei came in unchanged at No. 46 (arrow D) with total points of 27631 in this week’s rankings (arrow C).
On the other hand, “Picture 3” showed Chen Long had total points of 91061 (arrow 2) in the May 14, 2015 ranking week (arrow 1), while Lin Dan had his grip at the world No. 2 spot with 75050 points the same week.
During the 2015 Sudirman Cup, Chen Long defeated Boonsak Ponsana and Christie Jonatan in the tie between China versus Thailand, and China versus Indonesia; while Lin Dan recorded 3 straight-sets victories, two against Marc Zwiebler of Germany, and one in the Sudirman Cup final against Takuma Ueda. However, “Picture 4” showed on May 21 (arrow 3), Chen Long’s accumulated rank points has increased to 92441, but Lin Dan’s rank points stayed unchanged at 75050.
Even though we do not fully understand the formula BWF use in calculating badminton players’ rankings, but it just doesn’t sense mathematically that Lee Chong Wei, Lin Dan and many other players’ ranking points did not move a single digit after the Dongguan Sudirman Cup.
In light of all of the confusion over this week’s BWF rankings, Malaysia’s men’s doubles pair Goh V Shem-Tan Wee Kiong’s shot up 10 spots to world NO. 19 after posted 2 wins and 1 loss at the Dongguan Sudirman Cup. Lee Yong-Dae/Yoo Yeon-Seong of Korea, Mathias Boe/Carsten Mogensen of Denmark and Hendra Setiawan/Mohammad Ahsan were still the top 3 men’s pair in the world.
Both Zhang Nan/Zhao Yunlei and Xu Chen/Ma Jin were the top 2 mixed doubles of the world, while Tontowi Ahmad/Liliyana Natsir came in third. After their stellar performances at the 2015 Sudirman Cup by winning all their matches, Malaysian mixed doubles pair of Chan Peng Soon/Goh Liu Ying boosted upwards to world No. 54 only three months of getting back together.
Saina Nehwal of India, Li Xuerui of China, and Carolina Marin of Spain were the top three women’s singles players on the BWF rankings.
Misaki Matsutomo/Ayaka Takahashi continued their recent domination of women’s doubles to stay on top of the chart with 85019 points, followed by Tian Qing/Zhao Yunlei, and Wang Xiaoli/Yu Yang. Malaysia’s top women’s doubles pair Vivian Hoo/Woon Khe Wei went unchanged at the No. 11 spot.
