Kuala Lumpur: Fresh from securing both the YONEX and Toyota Thailand Open titles and finishing runner up at the Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Tour Finals, Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen improved his position by two places and is now No. 2 in the world.
The Danish badminton star has now reduced the point difference between him and World No. 1 Kento Momota to 14,840 points.
The last time BWF updated its rankings was on March 17, 2020. Since then, all international tournaments have been suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the world rankings were also frozen.
Another Danish player, Anders Antonsen who defeated Axelsen in the final of the 2020 BWF World Tour Finals last Sunday, also broke the 90,000 points mark and remained at third place.
In men’s doubles, the red-hot Lee Yang/Wang Chi-Lin of Taiwan who swept the BWF World Tour Super Finals title alongside their two victories at both YONEX and Toyota Thailand Open in the last three weeks saw their strong performance paid off big time as they soared 4 spots in the latest BWF rankings to No. 3, behind Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo and Hendra Setiawan/Mohammad Ahsan of Indonesia.
Malaysia’s Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik, Goh V Shem/Tan Wee Kiong, Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi, and Goh Sze Fei/Nur Izzuddin were ranked No. 9th, 11th, 13th, and 27th.
After clinching the year-end title at the BWF World Tour Finals, Taiwan’s Tai Tzu Ying continued to cement her place as the world’s No. 1 women’s singles player, followed by Chen Yufei of China and Carolina Marin of Spain.
The 18-year-old An Se Young of Korea also moved past Michelle Li and He Bingjiao to become the No. 8 women’s singles player in the world.
In the women’s doubles rankings, Malaysia’s Chow Mei Kuan/Lee Meng Yean, surged up 4 places to No. 10, while their compatriots Vivian Hoo/Yap Cheng Wen rose to 17th and young pair Pearly Tan/Thinaah Muralitharan jumped 9th places to 30th.
Although they didn’t compete at the recently concluded 3-back-to-back Asia leg tournaments in Bangkok, China’s Zheng Siwei/Huang Yangqiong still hold onto the top spot in the mixed doubles rankings.
Thailand’s Dechapol Puavaranukroh/Sapsiree Taerattanachai who capped a remarkable three-week run by winning three big title victories, earned over 10,000 points to overtake Wang Yi Lyu/Huang Dong Ping of China at world No. 2.
Malaysia’s four mixed doubles pairs, Chan Peng Soon/Goh Liu Ying, Goh Soon Huat/Lai Shevon Jemie, Tan Kian Meng/Lai Pei Jing, Hoo Pang Ron/Cheah Yee See were ranked 7th, 10th, 12th, and 28th respectively.
