Kuala Lumpur: Kento Momota of Japan kept his lead in the latest BWF men’s badminton rankings even after the loss to Shi Yuqi in the final of the Sudirman Cup last Sunday.
Momota also became the second badminton player in either singles or doubles to ever surpass the 111k total ranking points mark, after Chinese mixed doubles pair Zheng Siwei/Huang Yaqiong cemented their dominance in mixed doubles with 114,102 points.
Momota earned 111,118 total points in the latest BWF rankings, followed by China’s Shi Yuqi (90,661), Viktor Axelsen of Denmark (79,438), Chou Tien Chen of Taiwan (79,118) and Chen Long of China (75,840).
Meanwhile, the Malaysian badminton legend Lee Chong Wei, dropped 80 positions to 190th after the points he collected from the 2018 Thomas Cup were excluded in the latest ranking.
Lee Chong Wei, who will be 37 years old in the coming October, has not played a single tournament since the Indonesian Open last July. Although he has reportedly recovered from the early-stage nose cancer and has started training since January this year, but has not been able to return to international tournament as his doctors have yet to issue him the greenlight to start playing competitively.
Although the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) have applied for ranking protection for Lee, the ranking protection will expire in mid-August. Lee’s remaining 8,400 points in the ranking came from his semi-finals achievement at last year’s Indonesia Open. If Lee couldn’t return before this year’s Indonesia Open that will be held from July 16th to 21st, his BWF world ranking points for the week of July 23rd will be set to zero.
In women’s singles, Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei continued to rank top with Chen Yufei of China moved up a spot to No. 2. Japanese player Nozomi Okuhara and Akane Yamaguchi both ranked third and fourth respectively while India’s PV Sindhu occupied the fifth position.
Indonesia and Japan shared 4 out of five spots in the men’s doubles ranking, with Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo in No. 1 and Hendra Setiawan/Mohammad Ahsan in No. 4, while Takeshi Kamura/Keigo Sonoda of Japan in No. 2 and Hiroyuki Endo/Yuta Watanabe in No. 5. China’s Li Junhui/Liu Yuchen stayed at No. 3.
Japan’s Mayu Matsumoto/Wakana Nagahara, Yuki Fukushima/Sayaka Hirota, and Misaki Matsutomo/Ayaka Takahashi rounded up top three in the BWF rankings.
