OLYMPIC DUMMY LISTS Apr 12th – Gold down under brings Indonesians back near top

Australian Open men's doubles champions Hendra Setiawan, left, and Markis Kido of Indonesia (Photo courtesy of Badminton Australia)

Yonex Australian Open men’s doubles champions Markis Kido and Hendra Setiawan continue their now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t visitations of Badzine’s Olympic Dummy List.  This time, it was their trip to the top of the podium in Sydney – site of Indonesia’s second Olympic gold in their category – that put the Beijing gold medallists back into the top eight, which entitles them to accompany compatriots Ahsan/Septano to London.

Kido and Setiawan’s success (see more here) had its share of consequences.  Koo/Tan of Malaysia, though bumped out of the top 8, will still qualify and instead the impact will be felt further down as Great Britain’s Andrew Ellis loses his spot, while partner Chris Adcock is again relegated to only mixed doubles.  With the bar raised, it will also be extremely difficult now for Japan to put two pairs into the top 8 and all three who are waiting outside that threshold are instead likely to be fighting each other for a lone spot.

Just as happened recently to Maja Tvrdy, Petr Koukal has been relegated to reserve, since Chris Adcock is no longer doing double duty.  However, Petr leads a pack of four horsemen, including Kestutis Navickas, Misha Zilberman, and Raul Must, all of whom are within a 700-point striking distance of the current last qualifier Stephan Wojcikiewicz of Canada.  Even further down the list, the Oceanian continental qualifying spot changed hands this week.  James Eunson of New Zealand scored a first round win last week in Sydney and that was enough for him to overtake compatriot Michael Fowke, who has been inactive since losing to Eunson in the Oceania Championship final.

Akvile Stapusaityte (LTU) © Yves Lacroix for Badmintonphoto

This week, Maja suffered a slightly different fate.  Not playing in the French International Series cost the Slovenian dearly, as she was passed by Orléans semi-finalist Akvile Stapusaityte (pictured).  The Lithuanian edges into 83rd spot to take the last non-continental qualifying spot and leave first reserve to Tvrdy.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, Ai Goto made a valiant attempt to lunge into the top 16 and become a second qualifier for Japan.  However, Thailand’s Porntip Buranaprasertsuk (pictured bottom) – the current #16 – was herself just as keen on keeping two for Thailand.  Even though Porntip did not have the benefit of a compatriot-granted walkover to pave her way to the semi-finals, her quarter-final loss in Sydney to the eventual champion still added a little over 1000 points to the Thai’s point total, allowing her to maintain a cushion going into the last two tournaments.

Women’s doubles saw the expected changing of the Malaysian guard as veterans Chin and Wong, after a good run at the Australian Open, officially replace Hoo and Woon as that nation’s sole representative.

Australia's Glenn Warfe and Leanne Choo (Photo courtesy of Badminton Australia)

Chinese Taipei’s Cheng Wen Hsing / Chien Yu Chin are not in jeopardy but their second round nail-biter in Sydney was all but a nail in the coffin for the Olympic hopes of adversaries Jung and Kim of Korea.  With the Taiwan pair now nearly 3000 points ahead and China’s Tang and Xia breathing down their necks, it appears that Korea will be down to a single pair not only in mixed, but also in women’s doubles.  Both will be firsts in badminton’s Olympic era.

Mixed doubles again saw no changes.  Mateusiak and Zieba may have done all within their power when they defeated their nearest challengers for the 15th spot, Chrisnanta and Neo of Singapore, but change is afoot elswhere that could leave the Poles in need of a couple of miracles in Karlskrona and Delhi.  The top Oceania pair, Glenn Warfe and Leanne Choo (pictured) lost in the first round at home but they still chalked up nearly half the gap between themselves and the current #50, which must be their target if they wish to get to London.  Warfe and Choo next travel to Tahiti, where they are the top seeds but must face off against Pan Am qualifier Toby Ng in a scratch pairing in the second round.

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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.

Australian Open quarter-finalist Porntip Buranaprasertsuk of Thailand (Photo courtesy of Badminton Australia)

Please find the latest lists at the links below. They have been calculated using the world ranking points published by the BWF from May 1st, 2011 to the present. We hope to continue to provide weekly updates from now until the end of the qualification period.

The Dummy Lists for April 12th 2012
Men’s Singles
Women’s Singles
Men’s Doubles
Women’s Doubles
Mixed Doubles

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