TUC 2010 – Sudden revelation of special ranking system wreaks havoc in Kuala Lumpur

By Jan Lin. Photo by BadmintonPhoto (archives)

Instead, the bi-annual competition will be adopting a “special ranking system” in determining which doubles pair of each country will be the unofficial “number 1 pair” to represent the team at the Finals. The singles players ranking will not be affected. 

It is claimed that the sport’s ruling body, Badminton World Federation (BWF), has adopted this system at the previous Thomas and Uber Cup Finals but because it has never caused major adjustments for any team to contest it’s legitimacy, so it has gone “unnoticed”:

This “special ranking points system” adopted at the Thomas and Uber Cup Finals is calculated by taking the individual ranking points of each doubles player, multiplying it by ten, and dividing that by the points accumulated from the ten recent tournaments the player has competed in.

Teams from China, Korea, Japan, Germany, Poland and Australia are reportedly affected by the enforcement of this special ranking system in Kuala Lumpur.

The talking point of this sudden revelation has been spotlighted on China’s Thomas Cup team, where China’s world number 8 pair of Cai Yun/Fu Haifeng (pictured), who has played only 6 events in the last 12 months, will be adjusted to play in the first doubles slot even though they are currently ranked behind world number 5 pair Guo Zhendong/Xu Chen, who will now play in the second doubles slot.

China’s head coach Li Yongbo admitted that having Cai/Fu playing in the first doubles slot may have disrupted their strategy for Cup glory, as they have spent much time preparing Guo/Xu as the first pair while Cai/Fu were prepared to play against the second-ranked pairs of each team.

Li Yongbo, however, astutely pointed out that this is not an entirely ominous thing for China because Cai/Fu is after all the more experienced and senior pair in the squad, and are the reigning world champions after all. This might thus turn out to be a blessing in disguise as the first-ranked pairs of nemeses such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Denmark may be caught equally off-guard and have to make sudden adjustments in their team strategies against team China.

Cai/Fu were rested in China’s opening tie against Pan-American men’s team champions Peru this morning where the defending Cup holders defeated Peru 5-0.