The Badminton World Federation (BWF) is the global governing body for badminton. All the international badminton tournaments you watch come under the wings of BWF.
The governing body organises several badminton competitions across various disciplines throughout the year. And BWF has categorised all these tournaments under three grades.
So what are these grades? And which tournaments fall under them?
In this piece, let’s take a look at the grade system used by BWF.
BWF Tournaments: Grade 1
As the name suggests, this is the top grade among the BWF Tournaments. The global governing body organises some major badminton tournaments every year under the Grade 1 structure.
There are seven major tournaments that directly come under the ambit of BWF. Apart from that, badminton matches played in the Olympics also come under Grade 1.
The major Grade 1 badminton tournaments organised by BWF are as follows:
- BWF World Championships
- Thomas Cup
- Uber Cup
- Sudirman Cup
- BWF World Junior Championships
- BWF World Senior Championships
- BWF Para-Badminton World Championships
The Olympic games are also part of Grade 1 tournaments. BWF organises the Summer Olympic and Paralympic badminton games with the International Olympic Committee and International Paralympic Committee, respectively.
The Olympics come after every four years. So except for the Olympic year, the BWF World Championships and Para-Badminton World Championships take place every year.
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BWF Tournaments: Grade 2
The Grade 2 tournaments include the BWF World Tour and BWF Tour. The BWF World Tour has five levels, while the BWF Tour is a level six tournament.
Each tour has several tournaments under them that offer different ranking points and prize money to the players. The top eight players/pairs from the BWF World Tour qualify for the BWF World Tour Finals at the end of the year.
The BWF World Tour Finals is the level 1 tournament in Grade 2, followed by Super 1000 (level 2), Super 750 (level 3), Super 500 (level 4), Super 300 (level 5), and Super 100 (level 6).
The top 15 singles players and the top 10 doubles pairs need to participate in at least 12 tournaments per year. Of the 12 tournaments, they have to mandatorily participate in all Super 1000 (four) and Super 750 (six) tournaments, while they can play in any two out of the total Super 500 tournaments.
BWF Tournaments: Grade 3
The Grade 3 involves BWF’s Continental Circuit Tournaments. There are three levels in the Continental Circuit.
BWF International Challenge is a level 1 tournament in Grade 3, followed by BWF International Series (level 2) and BWF Future Series (level 3). The lower-ranked shuttlers participate in several tournaments in each level organised under the Grade 3 structure.
All Grade 3 tournaments offer different ranking points and prize money to players.
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