How is BWF badminton world ranking calculated?

The world ranking of badminton players is calculated and released by the BWF (Badminton World Federation) every week on Thursday. The world ranking indicates the players approximate playing strength as compared to other fellow badminton players of the world.

Separate world badminton rankings are released for 5 separate events,
1. Men's Singles (MS)
2. Women's Singles (WS)
3. Men's Doubles (MD)
4. Women's Doubles (WD)
5. Mixed Doubles (XD)

You may ask, how is the BWF badminton world ranking calculated? and how does it all work?

Well, the calculation done for arriving at the badminton world ranking is quite simple. It works like this:

• Players participating in BWF graded badminton tournaments earn world ranking points based on how they perform at the tournaments.
• Players are ranked only if they have participated in at least 2 graded tournaments in the last 12 months.
• Furthermore the tournaments themselves are classified as below, and the higher the level of the tournament, the more world ranking points can be earned.
• The higher the number of points earned, the higher the ranking is.

Listed in the below table is a brief overview of how the world badminton ranking points are calculated & granted by the BWF depending on the tournament levels, and performances, (based on the BWF rules & regulations prevailing as of today)

	Winner	Runner-up	3/4	5/8	9/16
BWF tournaments	12000	10200	8400	6600	4800
BWF Super Series finals / Super series premier	11000	9350	7700	6050	4320
BWF Super series tournament	9200	7800	6420	5040	3600
Grand Prix Gold event	7000	5950	4900	3850	2750
Grand Prix event	5000	4250	3500	2750	1920
International challenge tournament	4000	3400	2800	2200	1520
International series tournament	2500	2130	1750	1370	920
Future Series event	1700	1420	1170	920	600

The table above shows how, depending on the level of the tournament, and the player's performance the world ranking points are worked out. The table is incomplete because I haven't listed the points that are calculated for positions 17 and above at any of the tournaments. This is only meant to give a gist of how rankings get calculated.

As an example, let's take the case of a player who losed in the semi-finals of a International challenge tournament event. That player would get 2800 ranking points for this performance, and the ranking would be calculated and updated on the immediate next Thursday after the tournament has been conducted.

Hope this article gives a fair if not complete idea of how the badminton world ranking system works, and how the rankings are calculated.

.

Share this post