Poll – New World Champions coming: Who will they be?

The BWF World Championships are less than a month away and at least two disciplines are guaranteed to have brand new champions.  Cast your vote in our latest Badzine poll for the pair you think will take the honours in 2017.

Photos: Badmintonphoto

As the best of the badminton world prepare to gather in Glasgow Scotland for the mostly annual World Badminton Championships, we get ready to welcome new winners to the top of the podium.  The defending champions in both singles events are due back this year, each after adding Olympic gold medals to their string of two World Championship titles.  Returning, too, are 2013 winners Lin Dan and Ratchanok Intanon.

The mixed doubles winners from Guangzhou, Tontowi Ahmad and Liliyana Natsir, are also in the game for this summer after winning Olympic gold in Rio.  Defending World Champion Zhang Nan is back with a new partner in Li Yinhui and 2009 winner Kamilla Rytter Juhl is again slated to see action only in the women’s doubles category but all other past champions have retired.

Women’s doubles is the one discipline where no one is entering with a world title in hand, even with a different partner, except for the aforementioned Rytter Juhl, whose title is in a different discipline.  This event will be particularly exciting this year as it will feature three top ten pairs participating in their first ever World Championships – Chen Qingchen / Jia Yifan (pictured above) and Huang Dongping / Li Yinhui of China and Japan’s Yuki Fukushima / Sayaka Hirota – as well as the debut for half of the world #7 pair, Shiho Tanaka (JPN) and for China’s Yu Xiaohan, who will be #19 in the world by the time the seedings are done.

Two of the three pairs of rookies have won Superseries titles this year, the third reached two finals late last year, Shiho Tanaka won the India Open with her slightly more experienced partner and Yu Xiaohan won the China Masters and reached the All England semis.

Cast your vote for the pair most likely to win the world title in 2017 and feel free to use the comment section below to explain your answer.

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Men’s doubles is not quite as wide open as it has been in the past.  Unlike the women’s doubles, which has had six different winners in the first six Superseries events of this year, just six pairs have accounted for the last 15 men’s doubles Superseries titles and one of the six has retired.  Exactly one pair in Glasgow’s men’s doubles competition will boast a returning champion but Mohammad Ahsan and Rian Agung Saputro have done little since reaching the Hong Kong Open semi-finals last year.

Foremost among the World Championship rookies is All England winner Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo of Indonesia.  The 21-year-old reached #1 in the world this year with Marcus Fernaldi Gideon (pictured above), who played the Worlds back in 2014.  The other first-timers in the world’s top 20 are Lu Ching Yao / Yang Po Han (TPE) and Huang Kaixiang / Wang Yilyu (CHN).

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Follow these links for the latest World Championship entry lists for women’s doubles and men’s doubles.