FINAL DUMMY LISTS May 3rd – Delhi sends six more to London

The final week of Olympic qualifying was by far the most productive this year in terms of changes, with 8 London tickets changing hands, far more than in the All England week.  Foremost among them were the three who celebrated by becoming newly-crowned Superseries champions at the India Open on Sunday.

By Don Hearn, Badzine Correspondent.  Photos: Badmintonphoto

In three days’ time, the Badminton World Federation (BWF) will release their official May 3rd world rankings and the selection process by the national Olympic committees (NOCs) will begin.  At that point, the Badzine Olympic Qualification Dummy Lists will certainly lose their relevance but by simply looking at the final rankings on May 3rd, one would fail to capture the drama and suspense that this Olympic qualifying period has generated, and kept going right up until the very end.

How fitting it is, then, not only that we had an unprecedented amount of movement in terms of the qualifying spots, but that many of those who made it onto the London roster also enjoyed weeks that would have been very memorable no matter what was at stake in ranking point terms.

Indian gold means a shot at English gold

The Yonex-Sunrise India Open Superseries provided the biggest list of changes.  Fittingly, three of those who improved their station went on to claim titles, Superseries firsts for all of them.  Actually, men’s doubles champions Bodin Issara / Maneepong Jongjit (pictured) from Thailand were assured of a spot in London by the quarter-final stage.  At that point, Malaysia’s Koo/Tan had moved back into the top 8, expelling Kido/Setiawan, and freeing up an extra spot further down in the rankings, as Indonesia was then limited to a single pair.  On the same day, of course, Issara/Jongjit had advanced to the final eight, giving them just enough points to surpass England’s Adcock/Ellis, who had made a first-round exit in New Delhi.

The fact that Adcock got passed over for the available men’s doubles spot actually did no good for certain Europeans in men’s singles, either.  Had Adcock qualified in a second discipline, that would have freed up an Olympic Village bed for another singles shuttler to move off the reserve list.  Instead, another player got relegated to reserve.  Shon Wan Ho, on quarter-finals day, pulled off his first incredible upset of the week, over Peter Gade, and earned himself enough points to pop into the top 16, where he needed to be to qualify alongside veteran team-mate Lee Hyun Il, whose ticket was already secure when he lost in the early rounds in India.

Shon’s qualification then had repercussions down at the bottom of the list, where Raul Must was placed on the reserve list to await unused tripartite spots or player cancellations.

The last change involving an India Open winner came on Saturday, when Korea’s Jung Kyung Eun / Kim Ha Na (pictured) beat the second seeds to earn the points needed to sneak into the top eight, entitling them to join Ha/Kim in the London women’s doubles competition.  This, too, came at a price further down the list, of course, and what had at one time looked like a key duel between two Malaysian pairs turned out to be a non-issue, but only because India’s Jwala Gutta / Ashwini Ponnappa (pictured above) had made a giant leap to safety, past both Malaysians and also past Russia’s Sorokina/Vislova.

In fact, the Koreans were helped significantly by the pair they passed to enter the top 8.  Not only did Cheng Wen Hsing / Chien Yu Chin of Chinese Taipei withdraw from the India Open, where they might have gained too many points for the Koreans to catch them, but last week in Qingdao, the Taiwan veterans shut down the streaking Tang/Xia of China, who at the time were looking to bolt into the top 8 themselves.

Ripples that span continents

A pair of changes happened in one of the last two BWF-sanctioned tournaments of the Olympic qualifying period but affected players in a whole other continent.  First came the success, in India, of Singapore’s Gu Juan (pictured).  Gu’s advance into the top 16 ousted Thailand’s #2 Porntip Buranaprasertsuk and this moved Akvile Stapusaityte off the reserve list, despite the Lithuanian’s failure to accumulate any usable ranking points at the Portuguese International.

The other such change actually makes things easier the makers of dummy lists.  In Portugal, the runner-up performance by Croatia’s Zvonimir Durkinjak / Stasa Poznanovic moved them into the crucial 50th spot that would keep Australia’s Warfe/Choo from earning a continental spot in mixed doubles.  As mentioned when we presented last week’s lists, that would have given Australia the right to choose to apply their continental privilege only to any 2 of the 3 doubles disciplines, with each of the resultant 3 scenarios having their own set of ramifications.  In fact, our statistical team discovered today that had the Croatians not passed the Australians, the latter may only have had the #50 spot as a result of a clerical error whereby Chinese Taipei’s Fang Chieh-Min was entered in a tournament with an incorrect player ID#.

As it is, the Australians are below the mixed doubles cut-off and that means that the spot for European Champions Robert Mateusiak / Nadiezda Zieba is secure.

A little last-minute fratricide

The last set of changes were internal struggles.  Hsu Jen Hao (pictured left) of Chinese Taipei, Kashyap Parupalli of India, and Miyuki Maeda / Satoko Suetsuna (pictured below) of Japan all had fantastic weeks, reaching the semi-finals of the India Open Superseries, and in each case, this was enough to see them ahead of their compatriots.

However, as we mentioned last week, with these lists, we are merely attempting to predict those published by the BWF later this week.  Once notified of the qualifiers early next month, many NOCs will have a choice among several players.  Most will likely select the highest ranked to go to London.   However, others may have more confidence in the experience or fitness of a lower-ranked players and may select them if they are above the relevant cutline.  Other NOCs may, as in the past, elect not to send players who have not met more stringent criteria set internally, such as a certain world ranking.

We hope you have enjoyed following the ups and downs of the Olympic qualification points with us these past few months, as well as some of the ins and outs of the qualification rules.  It is now up to the players and their NOCs and national associations to handle the next step.  And, of course, for those lucky enough to get the nod for London, there are months of hard training ahead as they gear up to make the most of their chance of a lifetime in England this summer.

________________

Badzine’s lists are not official. Only the BWF is entitled to give the names of the qualifying shuttlers. We provide it only to give fans, and players themselves, a better view of the players who could potentially qualify for the London Olympics. These lists are updated by our trio of experts amongst which a BWF-certificated umpire – and takes into account the BWF’s own qualification rules.

In our lists of players potentially qualified, we have included the number of spots made available when a player has qualified in more than one event.  In these cases, extra spots are made available in the singles categories for that gender and we have added these to a base group of 35.   It has not been possible, however, to predict how and if the Tripartite Commission Places will be allocated.  These will be announced by the BWF in the coming weeks and so an additional three singles spots per gender will go to players qualifying under Tripartite Commission rules, with unused spaces going to players on the reserve lists that we have identified.

Players qualifying in two disciplines

Male (2)
Vladimir Ivanov, RUS (MS, MD)
Lee Yong Dae, KOR (MD, XD)

Female (8)
Cheng Wen Hsing, TPE (WD, XD)
Jwala Gutta, IND (WD, XD)
Ha Jung Eun, KOR (WD, XD)
Michelle Li, CAN (WS, WD)
Christinna Pedersen, DEN (WD, XD)
Kamilla Rytter Juhl, DEN (WD, XD)
Valeri Sorokina, RUS (WD, XD)
Zhao Yunlei, CHN (WD, XD)

Please find the final lists at the links below. They have been calculated using the world ranking points that we anticipate will be published by the BWF this Thursday, May 3rd.  This marks the end of the qualification period for London 2012. We at Badzine have enjoyed bringing you the Olympic qualification race in this way.  Perhaps we will get the chance to do it again for Rio.

The Final 2012 Olympic Dummy Lists – May 3rd, 2012
Men’s Singles
Women’s Singles
Men’s Doubles
Women’s Doubles
Mixed Doubles (revised – May 3rd)

________________

You will always be able to find the latest dummy lists on this page, or find it in our ‘Features’ menu at the top of any Badzine page. To see the complete current BWF world rankings, click here and you can still find the links to past dummy lists using the links below:

April 26th
April 19th
April 12th
April 5th
March 29th
March 22nd
March 15th
March 8th
March 1st
January 19th
December 29th