Birdievents.com

Rising Indian shuttler Sourabh Varma cracked the top 50 in the latest world badminton rankings on Thursday, following his superb performance at the Syed Modi Grand Prix gold tournament last week.

Sourabh, who finished runner-up at the season-ending tournament, jumped 22 ranking places to be placed at the 50th position in the rankings released on Thursday.

The 20-year-old from Madhya Pradesh had a dream run in the prestigious tournament as he beat higher-ranked players such as Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia, Yun Hu of Hong Kong and Suppanyu Avihingsanon of Thailand en route to the final, where he lost to former Olympic and World champion Taufik Hidayat in Lucknow.

"This is my first year in the international circuit and I am happy to break into the top 50. I had calculated during the Syed Modi tournament that I will hopefully make it to the top 50. Now my target is to reach the top 30 next year," Sourabh told PTI.

"Gopi Sir has told me that I have improved and I have to keep working hard. I have learned a lot from the mistakes that I committed during the tournament. With experience, I can only improve," added the Bahrain International Challenger winner.

Top Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal continued to hold the fourth position in the women's rankings, while among other men's singles players, RMV Gurusaidutt gained three places to be at 40th place. P Kashyap and Ajay Jayaram were at the 27th and 28th position.

V Diju and Jwala Gutta jumped four places to the 14th spot after their semi-final finish at Syed Modi, while commonwealth Games gold medalist pair of Jwala and Ashwini Ponnappa were also at the 14th position.

In a bid to make badminton more accessible to fans, BWF have entered into a strategic alliance with BlueTalk NV, the creators of the innovative social sports platform solution, TeamBlogger, to roll out a badminton app in 2012.

As the first official badminton mobile app by the BWF that synergises a variety of badminton content ranging from statistics, results, social networks to videos, this new mobile technology development aligns with the BWF’s position as a fans-focused sports federation.

“This mobile app will allow fans to access the sport on-the-go”, said Thomas Lund, COO of the BWF, “and we believe that a strong badminton fan culture is established by providing alternative new media platforms for fans to engage and interact with one another.”

“This partnership with BlueTalk allows the sport to stay on top of new technology, and this is important in creating a commercial competitive-edge for the sport,” concluded Lund.

Frederic Schroyens, CEO of BlueTalk, said, “Badminton already has a massive fan-following, especially in Asia. We are just thrilled to be presented with such a tremendous opportunity to partner with the BWF in uniting the sport’s fans on mobile, which is our core business.”

The new mobile app will be expected to launch in the first half of 2012, and will be available through a variety of mobile platforms.

Yes, Lee Chong Wei finally wins over Lin Dan.  However, it is not on the badminton court, but in the fan's hearts.  The contest was held by BWF to find 2011 badminton player of the year contest.

The top four highest votes for the male and female Player of the Year fan vote campaign are as follows:

2011 BWF Male Player of the Year

Lee Chong Wei – 34% of votes
Lin Dan – 22% of votes
Cai Yun/Fu Haifeng – 16% of votes
Lee Yong-dae/Jung Jae-sung – 14% of votes

2011 BWF Female Player of the Year

Liliyana Natsir – 78% of votes
Wang Xiaoli/Yu Yang – 6% of votes
Wang Shixian – 5% of votes
Wang Yihan – 4% of votes

Fans appeal and the role model quality of a player are of growing importance in the criteria of the BWF Player of the Year award. 

The decision of the 2011 Male and Female Players of the Year Awards will be taken at the BWF Council Meeting currently taking place in Queenstown, New Zealand.  The voting results will potentially influence the decision of the awards especially if it goes down to a tight two-horse race, your vote can make a difference!

The winners of the two prestigious awards will be announced at the Li Ning BWF World Superseries Finals in Liuzhou, China, next week and the winners will receive the awards over an Awards presentation ceremony at the event.

Ranked number one in the world is probably just a prestige in world badminton arena.  Chong Wei has been many years holding that prestige, but he is still jitter whenever he has to face two of the China players, Chen Long and Lin Dan.  A few weeks ago, Chong Wei mentioned if Chen Long would be his hurdle to reach the gold medal in 2012 Olympics. Yet in the last two weeks, Chong Wei could not bring his quality and consistency of reaching the final stage in 2012 Hong Kong and China Open.  If we measured these two events as Chong Wei performances in Olympics, he may only get bronze medal, assuming he will not face these two demons from China before the semi final stages.

So why is Chong Wei ranked higher compared to Lin Dan who beats him back to back in the last two weeks? Does it make any sense if a losing player ranked higher to the winning players?  Isn't it shown on the scores that Chong Wei could not come closed on those matches?   

If you are in the NBA, NFL, NHL or even in the college basketball or football leagues, you will be sure that your losing matches will count toward your ranking.  In the badminton, you will earn points because you join tournaments.  Winning will give you bonus points, but losing is just a record. 

We all know BWF is managing the ranking and points of the professional badminton players.  BWF is also ranking the country based the category, such as men/women singles, men/ women doubles, and mixed doubles.  Unfortunately, the distribution of points is wired and in many ways are not really true on justifying the players achievements and country strength. 

Let's pick the country ranking based on the October 06, 2011 publication of BWF website: 

How can China and Malaysia have the same 1500 points in the men singles category, when China has four players in the top ten (Lin Dan, Chen Long, Chen Jin and Du Pengyu). Malaysia only has one player, Lee Chong Wei who missed the final stages in the last two weeks? What happen if Chong Wei is injured and absent for three months or so.  Will Malaysia drop the points, but will stay in the next group with 1200 points without any top ten "active" players in the category?

Next, Denmark, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam are in the same level with 1200 points in the men single category.  Vietnam only has Tien Minh Nguyen who has never been in the top five of the world ranking.  Meanwhile, who is the men single player from Thailand in the top ten currently?

Again in the men double category, Chinese Taipei, England, Germany, Russia, and USA are in the same level with 1000 points.  The question is which men double pair from Russia is currently in the top 15 of the world or at least comparable to Chinese Taipei (Lee Sheng Mu/ Fang Chieh Ming)?

So, what is the benefit of having this ranking and points accumulation system?

Sponsorship

When an event is held with high caliber players (high cumulative points earners), the prestige of the event is higher.  The sponsorship fees will be higher and automatically the event will bring more crowds and wider media coverages, such as live TV/ radio broadcasts, and other viral media.

Players with the most points will also be paid higher for the sponsorship.

Incentives

Of course everyone wants to be the highest ranked player in the world.  It gives prestige and recognition. It is not only you will be proud of the achievements, your country will also be proud of you.  In Malaysia, your salary will be based on your ranking. In fact, BAM will provide bonuses for your high ranking achievements. 

To the players themselves, these points will allow them to play in the international events without going to through qualification rounds.  If they have high accumulated points and qualified into the premier rounds, they usually only have to win 3 matches and automatically enter into the semi final rounds or the event money stage.