Sugiarto, Sung pencil in Dubai reservations

Tommy Sugiarto and Sung Ji Hyun slipped into the top 8 in the Superseries rankings, placing them among the shuttlers to beat as five large chase packs also seek nominations for the Dubai season-ender.

There are only three events to go in the 2015 BWF World Superseries and scores of the world’s top badminton players still entertain at least mathematical chances of qualifying for the season-ending Dubai World Superseries Finals.  The Denmark Open produced plenty of upsets in each discipline but it only contributed three changes to the current list of tentative qualifiers.

Indonesia’s Tommy Sugiarto (pictured) will find that his runner-up performance in Odense will put him at #9 when the Badminton World Federation (BWF) releases the official standings later this week.  The previous #9, Kidambi Srikanth, inched up and it was his team-mate Parupalli Kashyap who was nudged out.

In the women’s singles, Sung Ji Hyun’s second straight semi-final appearance in Denmark finally propelled her into the top eight.  The champion Li Xuerui moved up even further, of course, to #5 but as the third Chinese shuttler on the list, she has yet to qualify for Dubai.  Akane Yamaguchi was the casualty in this discipline but she is only a few hundred points behind the new #9 Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei.

Technically, the women’s doubles also saw some changes as Ma Jin and Tang Yuanting reached the semi-finals in Denmark and duly vaulted all the way from #13 to #7.  However, the Chinese pair also withdrew from the French Open, meaning that #11 Go Ah Ra / Yoo Hae Won and #13 Jwala Gutta / Ashwini Ponnappa (pictured) of India will pass them either by winning one match in Paris or by simply showing up for their next two first round matches.

Women’s doubles is an excellent illustration of how wide open most races are this year.  With close to 30,000 points possible for a triple winner, shuttlers currently ranked far outside the top 20 still have a mathematical shot at qualifying for Dubai.

If you include the extreme case of a player winning the French, China, and Hong Kong Opens and everyone between him and the post-Denmark #7 forfeiting their next three opening matches, even Lee Chong Wei with his paltry 8,440 points has not yet been stripped of that infinitesimal chance of qualifying.  And that just means that most of the thirty players ranked between Lee and Sugiarto are on a scale from total longshots to serious contenders.

What makes women’s doubles even closer is the fact that a pair like Tian Qing / Zhao Yunlei stands a very real chance of at least reaching three more finals in succession, which would mean that the #8 pair would have to win at least two or three times to stay ahead.  And the Korean finalists from the last two Superseries events are ranked just ahead of the World Champions, who are the last hope to be China’s second pair.  The other factor here is that there are six disbanded pairs in the top 20 and another is a Japanese duo that would have to catch their compatriots at #5.

Please note that the numbers below have been produced using the BWF Destination Dubai Rankings.  These standings are unofficial, and are merely in anticipation of the official standings, which should be available at this link on Thursday, October 22nd.

Expected qualifiers are shown in bold, while reserve players are marked with an asterisk (*) if they would be called up only if their compatriots were to decline their invitation to Dubai.

Men’s singles
1  Chen Long (CHN) – 64650
2  Kento Momota (JPN) – 55570
3  Viktor Axelsen (DEN) – 48290
4  Jan Jorgensen (DEN) – 46070
5  Lin Dan (CHN) – 45820
6  Chou Tien Chen (TPE) – 41330
7  Tian Houwei (CHN) – 38890 *
8  K. Srikanth (IND) – 37840
9  Tommy Sugiarto (INA) – 37650
10  Kashyap Parupalli (IND) – 36840
11  Hu Yun (HKG) – 36440

Women’s singles
1  Wang Shixian (CHN) – 54560
2  Carolina Marin (ESP) – 53020
3  Wang Yihan (CHN) – 50150
4  Saina Nehwal (IND) – 45260
5  Li Xuerui (CHN) – 44110 *
6  Ratchanok Intanon (THA) – 42250
7  Nozomi Okuhara (JPN) – 42230
8  Sung Ji Hyun (KOR) – 42170
9  Tai Tzu Ying (TPE) – 40480
10  Akane Yamaguchi (JPN) – 40210 (pictured)

Women’s doubles
1  Luo Ying / Luo Yu (CHN) – 48410
2  Christinna Pedersen / Kamilla Rytter Juhl (DEN) – 46490
3  Nitya Krishinda Maheswari / Gresya Polii (INA) – 43390
4  Misaki Matsutomo / Ayaka Takahashi (JPN) – 40980
5  Reika Kakiiwa / Miyuki Maeda (JPN) – 37730
6  Eefje Muskens / Selena Piek  (NED) – 33320
7  Ma Jin / Tang Yuanting (CHN) – 31860
8  Chae Yoo Jung / Kim So Yeong (KOR) – 31460
9  Naoko Fukuman / Kurumi Yonao (JPN) – 29480 *
10  Wang Xiaoli / Yu Yang (CHN) – 28730
11  Go Ah Ra / Yoo Hae Won (KOR) – 28420
12  Tang Jinhua / Tian Qing (CHN) – 27440
13  Jwala Gutta / Ashwini Ponnappa (IND) – 27260

Men’s doubles
1  Lee Yong Dae / Yoo Yeon Seong (KOR) – 63350
2  Fu Haifeng / Zhang Nan (CHN) – 56120
3  Hiroyuki Endo / Kenichi Hayakawa (JPN) – 52080
4  Mathias Boe / Carsten Mogensen (DEN) – 48890
5  Muhammad Ahsan / Hendra Setiawan (INA) – 46060
6  Chai Biao / Hong Wei (CHN) – 45850
7  Mads Conrad Petersen / Mads Pieler Kolding (DEN) – 41260
8  Lee Sheng Mu / Tsai Chia Hsin (TPE) – 38580
9  Liu Xiaolong / Qiu Zihan (CHN) – 36710 *
10  Angga Pratama / Ricky Karanda Suwardi (INA) – 36570

Mixed doubles
1  Zhang Nan / Zhao Yunlei (CHN) – 61870
2  Tantowi Ahmad / Lilyana Natsir (INA) – 59780
3  Ko Sung Hyun / Kim Ha Na (KOR) – 53450
4  Liu Cheng / Bao Yixin (CHN) – 52850
5  Joachim Fischer-Nielsen / Christinna Pedersen (DEN) – 51190
6  Xu Chen / Ma Jin (CHN) – 49160 *
7  Lu Kai / Huang Yaqiong (CHN) – 47550 *
8  Chris Adcock / Gabrielle Adcock (ENG) – 45740
9  Praveen Jordan / Debby Susanto (INA) – 38440
10  Lee Chun Hei / Chau Hoi Wah (HKG) – 34800
11  Chan Yun Lung /  Tse Ying Suet (HKG) – 30580