After the Tang You Cup, the world badminton world has re-entered the competition with the Paris Olympics as the main theme. The Southeast Asian season, which kicked off yesterday with the Thailand Open, will be determined by a series of events that will determine the final qualification for the Olympic seed.
With the Asian Championships in April announcing the end of the battle for Olympic qualification and the end of the Tongyou Cup, the world badminton is now fully in the Olympic atmosphere. The remaining 70 days are mainly divided into two phases: one is a series of high-level tournaments starting with the Thailand Open this week; The second is the last month of intensive training and preparation.
This week's Thailand Open is at the 500 level, followed by the Malaysia Masters at the 500 level, the Singapore Open at the 750 level, the Indonesia Open at the 1000 level, and the Pacific Rim tournament in Australia, Canada, and the United States at the end of June.
For the national team, there is still a need to fight for better rankings in all five disciplines in order to secure a more favourable Olympic seeding quota in the world rankings, which ends on 9 July. Among them, Shi Yuqi in men's singles is currently ranked second, with a difference of less than 4,000 points from the first Axelsen, but from the perspective of the draw, the No. 1 seed and the No. 2 seed are no different. Li Shifeng is currently in sixth place, just 141 points away from Kodai Naraoka in fifth and nearly 5,000 points behind Antonsen in fourth. If Li Shifeng can surpass Antonsen in these races and finish in the top four, he will be seeded in the top four of the Olympic Games. In women's singles, Chen Yufei is currently ranked second, He Bingjiao is ranked sixth, and there is a difference of more than 16,000 points from Dai Ziying in fifth and Akane Yamaguchi in fourth, and it is very difficult to overtake.
Men's Doubles Leung Wai Hang/Wang Chang are currently ranked first, more than 4,000 points ahead of the second place, and can further consolidate their position through the competition. Liu Yuchen/Ou Xuanyi, who won the Olympic qualifying round, are once again at the same crossroads, and they are currently ranked eighth, only 2,000 points ahead of Li Yang/Wang Qilin, which is not an advantage in so many high-level events. Once overtaken by the opponent and squeezed out of the top eight, "Liu Ou" will play as a non-seed in the Olympics, and there will be two pairs of seeds in the same group, and the situation will be very dangerous.
Women's doubles Chen Qingchen/Jia Yifan ranked first, and the third-ranked Liu Shengshu/Tan Ning were more than 14,000 points behind the second-ranked Bai Ha Na/Li Shaoxi. Therefore, the first thing the "Altar" has to do is to do his best and keep the top four seeds.
Mixed doubles is the only event in which the national team has won the top two, with "IELTS" topping the list with nearly 110,000 points, but "Phoenix" is currently only 409 points ahead of third-ranked Yuta Watanabe/Arisa Higashino, and they will need to keep their second place in these tournaments in order to have an advantage in the Olympic draw.
Due to the large number of competitions, the main players of the national team focused on the two highest-level tournaments, Indonesia and Singapore, and did not participate in this week's Thailand competition. In this competition, the national feather is dominated by lower-ranked players, and the men's singles Zhao Junpeng, Lu Guangzu, and Lei Lanxi played, of which Lei Lanxi will face Li Zijia in the first round today. Women's Singles Han Yue is the top seed, and she made her debut today with a quick win to advance to the second round; Fifth seed Zhang Yiman lost to South Korea's Shen Youzhen 15-21, 12-21 in the first round today; Also competing are second seeds Wang Zhiyi and Gao Fangjie. In Men's Doubles, Xie Haonan/Zeng Weihan and Chen Boyang/Liu Yi played against the Thai pair in the first round. Women's Doubles pairs of Kengshuliang/Zhang Chi and Li Yijing/Luo Xumin played, but they were in the same quarter. Mixed doubles Cheng Xing/Li Qian and Guo Xinwa/Chen Fanghui two new pairs, won the first round respectively, and will fight in the second round; Ruichang Masters champions Zhou Zhihong/Yang Jiayi lost 1-2 to a pair of Chinese Taipei in the first round.