BWF World Tour Finals: PV Sindhu lone Indian woman to qualify for season-ending meet, Wang Zhiyi misses the cut

The list of the top eight players has been confirmed after the Hylo Open Round of 32 matches in Saarbrucken in Germany, where Busanan Ongbamrungphan of Thailand beat India’s Saina Nehwal and made the cut.

P.V. Sindhu plays a shot against Canada’s Michelle Li in the women’s singles final at the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham on August 8, 2022. | Photo Credit: PTI

P.V. Sindhu is the only Indian woman to qualify for the season-ending BWF World Tour Finals to be held in Guangzhou on 14-18 December 2022. Sindhu won the World Tour Finals in 2019, and in 2021 she settled for a silver medal.

The list of the top eight players has been confirmed after the Hylo Open Round of 32 matches in Saarbrucken in Germany, where Busanan Ongbamrungphan of Thailand beat India’s Saina Nehwal and made the cut.

Among the top names who have missed the prestigious tournament are Wang Zhiyi and former Olympic champion Carolina Marin.

Sindhu, who is fourth in the Race To Guangzhou rankings, has started training in Hyderabad after missing the Commonwealth Games and BWF World Championships due to an injury.

Chen Yufei - the reigning Olympic champion - leads the chart as the no. 1 shuttler. She will be accompanied by fellow Chinese shuttler He Bingjiao, who has dominated the BWF world tour’s European leg, winning the Denmark Open and French Open in October.

Only the top eight players on the BWF World Tour Rankings - which is named Race To Guangzhou for the upcoming edition - across the five disciplines are eligible to play in the year-ending annual tournament.

Aside from Sindhu, men’s singles shuttler H.S. Prannoy - ranked two on the Race to Guangzhou rankings - has sealed his berth in the event along with Olympic and world champion Viktor Axelsen, Chinese Taipei’s Chou Tien Chen and Jonathan Christie of Indonesia. Lakshya Sen - ranked 10th - and Kimdabi Srikanth, ranked 12th, have slim chances.

In women’s doubles, Gayatri Gopichand-Treesa Jolly is the highest-ranked Indian pairing in the Race To Guangzhou Rankings. They are ranked 16th so could not make the cut.

In men’s doubles, so far, four pairs have qualified: Indonesia’s Fajar Alfian-Muhammad Adrinato and Mohammad Ahsan-Hendra Setiawan and Malaysia’s Ong Yew Yin-Teo E Yi and Aaron Chia-Soh Woo Yik.

In order to qualify for the Tour Finals, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty, India’s highest-ranked pair in the Race, has to win the Hylo Open and Australian Open and wait for other higher-ranked pairings to fail.

List of women’s singles shuttlers who have qualified for World Tour Finals:

1. Chen Yufei

2. Tai Tzu Ying

3. He Bingjiao

4. PV Sindhu

5. Ratchanok Intanon

6. An Se Young

7. Busanan Ongbamrungphan

8. Akane Yamaguchi

The list is made as updated by BWF World Tour Rankings as of November 3, 2022.