In this week's badminton world rankings released on January 23, Danish star Viktor Axelsen continues to top the men's singles rankings, but his ranking score has fallen to 97,605 points, which is the first time since November 30, 2021 that his points have fallen below the 100,000 mark. Axelsen has been the king of badminton men's singles for the last three or four years, does this phenomenon mean that the Danes have stepped down or are about to step down?
If in 2018 and 2019, the Japanese star Kento Momota dominated the world, then the last three or four years have been Axelsen's world. During this period, he won the Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 World Championships, becoming another top men's singles player who won the gold medals in the Olympic Games and the World Championships after Tawfik, Lin Dan and Chen Long. During this time, Axelsen also won the All England, China, Indonesia and Malaysia Opens, as well as the Tour Finals, becoming the first singles player in the history of the world badminton to win all Super 1000 titles. Taking the 2021 and 2022 seasons as an example, he won 7 and 8 singles championships in the international arena respectively, losing only 4 and 2 matches.
The world ranking points reflect an athlete's overall performance in the past year, and there are only a handful of players who have tasted 100,000 points in the world rankings so far. It is worth mentioning that since November 30, 2021, Axelsen's world ranking score has been looking up at 100,000 points, which is terrifying. Axelsen's strong momentum made the outside world once very optimistic about his prospects for the Paris Olympics, believing that once the Danes successfully won the gold medal, his overall record in the Olympic + World Championships would surpass Chen Long, and his historical achievements would be close to Lin Dan. With Axelsen's strength and form, it is not an extravagant hope to reach or approach the heights of Lin Dan (2 Olympic champions, 5 world champions) in the next few years.
No morning sun lasts a whole day. Axelsen's record has shown signs of decline since last season, which can be reflected in three indicators: six defeats in the year, higher than four in 2021 and two in 2022, and six players beating him, also higher than four in 2021 and two in 2022. Especially in December last year and January this year, he was defeated by Shi Yuqi twice, and lost to the same opponent in just one month, which has not appeared in Axelsen in the past few years, which shows that more and more players are finding ways to try to challenge Axelsen, taking Shi Yuqi as an example, 10 days ago he beat Axelsen in the semifinals of the Malaysia Open, which was unimaginable in the past.
Careful analysis shows that Axelsen's world ranking score fell below 100,000 points this week, which has a certain inevitability and chance. Inevitably, his record in major tournaments such as the 2023 World Championships and the 2024 Malaysia Open is not outstanding, and he has lost a lot of ranking points. By chance, he missed many high-level tournaments such as the Indonesia Open and the China Masters due to injury last season, which affected his world ranking points to a certain extent.
With the world ranking dropping below 10W this week, Axelsen ended a magical 112-week run, but it's too early to say his peak is over. How many people can become the all-time winner in the men's singles tournament?