Former top 10s call it quits

As the badminton world focussed its attention last week on the BWF World Superseries Finals, there was a different air of finality for more than one former top ten shuttler.  Within days of each other, former World Champion Wang Xiaoli of China and former world #9 Andy Ellis of England announced they would be retiring from international badminton competition.  Also in the past two weeks, two announcements came from Indonesia about former world #2 Vita Marissa and women’s singles Adriyanti Firdasari, who retired after she was unable to even begin her title defense at the Indonesian Masters.

Ellis’s decision was announced on Friday, just days before former partner Chris Adcock made history for England in Dubai.  Wang Xiaoli’s announcement (see here) came just a day after her compatriots Luo Ying and Luo Yu took the title that Wang herself had won on two occasions.

“It’s the toughest decision I’ve ever had to make,” Andy Ellis was quoted as saying in an article on the Badminton England website.  “The programme has only ever provided and supported me. Ultimately, it helped to achieve what I set out to do. Things change, and it’s a natural development in life.”

Ellis’s last tournament with his final partner Peter Mills was the recent Welsh International and he is now working as a sales director role at Strength and Conditioning Education.

“The three things I played badminton for were achieving, first and foremost, the enjoyment and the financial side as I got better throughout my career,” Ellis told Badminton England. “I dearly love the game and didn’t want to stop but I wanted to be secure in my life.”

Early last week, Vita Marissa announced on her Instagram account: “It’s been 28 years since the first time I held my racket and is still hard to let it go.  I don’t want to be sad because I believe Badminton is my life … my home.”

Adriyanti Firdasari echoed similar sadness to Marissa’s for the end of a career of 20 years, in her case.  Of the four new retirees, Vita Marissa is the only one who is over 30.

For the complete Badminton England report on Andy Ellis, click here