OLYMPIC DUMMY LISTS Apr 26th – Poles’ position subject to Aussie whims

Despite winning the European Championships, Poland’s Robert Mateusiak and Nadiezda Zieba are ‘out’ of Olympic qualifying territory, now that Australia has claimed a continental spot in mixed doubles, but there is a catch…

Presenting the Badzine Olympic Qualification Dummy Lists this week is a little more complicated.  Australia’s Glenn Warfe and Leanne Choo’s performances in Sydney and Tahiti, have moved them into the top 50, entitling them to the previously unclaimed Oceania continental qualifying spot in that discipline.  With them joining the Canadians as mixed doubles continental qualifiers, the fifteenth pair by ranking – newly crowned European Champions Robert Mateusiak and Nadiezda Zieba (pictured) – technically should be bumped.

However, it is not that simple.  Warfe and Choo had already earned the Oceania spots in men’s and women’s doubles respectively and the BWF’s Olympic qualification rules state that one National Olympic Committee (NOC) is entitled to a maximum of two continental tickets.

We might, in fact, assume that mixed will be the one dropped by the Australians.  For one thing, both Warfe and Choo are already assured of going to London; moreover, sending them as a mixed pair would mean keeping either Ross Smith or Renuga Veeran (pictured right with Leanne Choo) at home.  What’s more, Australia’s men’s and women’s doubles pairs are both ranked firmly in the top 40, whereas the mixed pair barely made the top 50 cut.  In other words, the Poles could be safe.

In the event that Australia were to decide otherwise, though, the effects would be numerous.  For one thing, Warfe or Choo qualifying in two disciplines would free up an Olympic Village bed for another singles shuttler.  For another, there are no other Oceania pairs in the top 50 in either men’s or women’s doubles, so the #14 pair – Adcock/Ellis or Aroonkesorn/Voravichitchaikul – would then qualify in either of these.  Then, in turn, Adcock qualifying for a second position would open up yet another singles spot.  Our lists, though, have not been altered to reflect these hypotheses.  Rather, the Australian pairs have been shown in a different colour and marked, along with the Polish mixed pair, with an asterisk.

USA’s Tony Gunawan recently went on record as saying that he intended to take his ticket to London to avoid simply giving the Pan Am spot to the Canadians.  In reality, however, Gunawan and Bach withdrawing would present the Canadians with a similar choice to Australia’s, as they already have the Pan Am spots wrapped up for women’s doubles and mixed.

As for the other actual changes for this week, the lower echelon in men’s singles continues to simmer.  With their success in Tahiti and Karlskrona, respectively, Misha Zilberman of Israel and Raul Must (pictured) of Estonia have moved beyond Petr Koukal and Scott Evans to surround Peru’s Rodrigo Pacheco for the last 3 spots before continentals.  Koukal and Evans now join Kestutis Navickas as hoping for both extra points from this week’s Portuguese International Series or, failing that, for unused tripartite singles spots.

In women’s singles, Slovenia’s Maja Tvrdy changed spots with Akvile Stapusaityte once again.  The Lithuanian is also in action in Caldas da Rainha this week, however, along with Rajae Rochdy, Grace Gabriel, and Hadia Hosny, who are all still duking it out for the African spot.

Finally, more change is in the wind for the final pre-Olympic standings.  Men’s doubles sees change afoot in India this week.  Koo Kien Keat / Tan Boon Heong (pictured below) have made the quarter-finals in New Delhi and should oust new father Markis Kido from the top 8, relegating Indonesia again to a single pair.  Meanwhile, that will free up a spot further down, where Thailand’s Maneepong Jongjit / Issara Bodin’s quarter-final performance should see them past first round losers Adcock/Ellis.

Shon Wan Ho is still chasing a top 16 spot.  Marc Zwiebler is now out of reach, as is Hans-Kristian Vittinghus, but Taufik was nice enough to stop Wang Zhengming in India so Shon will be looking to sneak past China’s #5 shuttler, with only the great Peter Gade standing in his way.  But more on that next week.

Finally, it bears mentioning that Badzine’s lists are an attempt to predict those published by the BWF next week.  Once these are released, another process will begin.  Not only will NOCs like Australia be choosing among disciplines, but others have indicated that they will require minimum rankings of their players before allowing them to go to London.  This could again jeopardize the likes of Dutch shuttlers, among others.

Also, as mentioned a few weeks ago, China can choose any three of their top four in women’s singles, and similar choices are available to Japan, who can choose two of three in the women’s doubles top 8, and Denmark, who have 3 in the men’s singles top 16.  Also, about a dozen countries can only send a single player or pair.  Britain could still choose to send Nathan Robertson, while Indonesia could send any one of their four pairs who are ranked ahead of Gunawan/Bach.

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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.

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 just have one more update next week, where we will look at the rankings at the end of the qualification period.  We will try to publish this as soon as possible after the podium ceremonies in Portugal.

The Dummy Lists for April 26th, 2012
Men’s Singles (revised – April 28th)
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 19th
April 12th
April 5th
March 29th
March 22nd
March 15th
March 8th
March 1st
January 19th
December 29th