For any badminton shuttler out there plying their trade, reaching the No. 1 world ranking position is like an ultimate goal. 

But it’s not an easy road to the top. They have to slog off in graded tournaments and earn those crucial points to reach their aim.

Now accruing points while playing in tournaments is all fine, but how do the shuttlers get ranked? And what are the basic criteria?

In this piece, let’s understand how the Badminton World Rankings work.

Badminton World Rankings

The sports global governing body, the Badminton World Federation (BWF), publishes the rankings every week. The BWF takes into account the total points accumulated by a shuttler in the past 52 weeks.

As you know, there are five different categories in badminton – men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles. Each category has its own ranking list.

So how do players earn ranking points?

See, shuttlers participate in badminton tournaments organised by BWF. These tournaments happen across different grades and different levels.

So players/pairs earn points based on their positioning in the tournaments they play in. For instance, if a player/pair plays in grade 1 major tournaments like BWF World Champions, Thomas & Uber Cups, and Olympics, then they bag the maximum points. Players/pairs also receive points for playing in grade 2 and 3 tournaments.

The players/pairs that emerge as winners in World Champions and Olympics receive 14,500 ranking points. The winners of grade 2 tournaments, which include the BWF World Tour, also earn significant points across different levels.

You can check out the rankings points players/pairs receive at different levels in the BWF World Tour here.

So the more tournaments a player plays, the more points and a higher rank they secure?

Well, that’s not how the ranking system works. The Badminton World Rankings only consider the 10 best tournaments played by a player/pair.

So if a player/pair features in 12 competitions in the past 52 weeks, then only the 10 highest-scoring tournaments out of them will be taken into account. And if a player/pair plays in less than 10 tournaments, then all their points will help determine their rank.

The system adds the points accumulated in the 10 best tournaments. And according to that, players/pairs rank on the ladder.

The higher a player/pair finishes in a tournament, the more points they bag. And if they keep doing this consistently in subsequent tournaments, the better their ranking will come out.

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