Explained: The different kinds of Badminton tournaments

The BWF has included a new Indian Series 100 event and promoted another in the calendar for the period 2023-2026.

The Badminton World Federation (BWF) has announced the new schedule of the yearly Badminton tournaments calendar for the period 2023-2026. This new format will be followed for a four-year period, starting from next year. There have been some interesting changes made.

The BWF has added more tournaments in their different World Tour brackets across different levels. Four new announced tournaments are to take place in countries like Japan, Canada, Finland and Australia from 2023 onwards. But on top of that, there have also been a few other switches across the different levels of the tournament.

According to the BWF calendar, there are five levels of different types of tournaments that take place every year. Those five are the Super 1000, Super 750, Super 500, Super 300 and Super 100 tournaments that happen every year. Moreover, the only tournaments to trump over these are the BWF World Champions and Olympics. So what is the major difference between all these four levels? Let’s have a look.

BWF World Championships or Olympics

At the very top of the BWF ‘grade system’ are the different BWF World Championships or the Olympics. The Olympics only happens once every four years, so that only counts in that particular year. However, the BWF World Championships take place every year. Moreover, the likes of the Thomas, Uber and Sudirman Cup are all included in the first grade in the Badminton tournament system.

The winners of these ‘grade one’ tournaments are awarded 13,000 points in the rankings system, with the runners-up getting 11,000 points and third-place finishers 9,200 points. However, at the Olympics, the third-place finishers (or bronze medal winners) receive 10,100 points and the fourth-place finishers get 9,200 points.

Super 1000

The Super 1000 editions in the BWF World Tour feature some of the most prestigious Badminton competitions every year. From 2023-2026, only the All England, Indonesia Open, China Open and Malaysia Open are deemed to be at the Super 1000 level. The Asian Championships are also at this level. The Super 1000 is considered as ‘Grade 2, Level 1-2’ in the BWF yearly calendar and has prize money of $1,000,000.

The winners of the Super 1000 tournaments are awarded 12,000 points in the World Rankings, with the runners-up receiving 10,200 points and 8,400 points respectively. These tournaments are held in high regard and importance below the BWF World Tour Finals and superior tournaments like the Olympics.

Super 750

The Super 750 tournaments are just a grade below the Super 1000 and the Grade 2 (Level 3) in the Badminton system. There will be 6 tournaments under the Super 750 grade to take place from 2023-2026, which will be China Masters, French Open, Denmark Open, Singapore Open, Japan Open and India Open.

In fact, the India Open has been upgraded from the Super 500 level to the Super 750 level for the upcoming five years. This could be because of India’s win in the Thomas Cup earlier this year. The winners of the tournament under this level receive 11,000 points, with the runners-up getting 9,350 points and third/fourth placed getting 7,700 points.

Super 500

The Super 500 grade is the Grade 2 (Level 4) of the BWF Tournament Ranking system. The Japan Open has been added to this level to take place from 2023 onwards as a brand new competition. That helps the Super 500 tournaments to be increased to 9 for a year.

These are the Indonesia Masters, Thailand Open, Finland Open, Australian Open, Canada Open, Hong Kong Open, Korea Open, Japan Open and Malaysia Open. At this level, the winners of these tournaments will receive 9,200 ranking points. The runners-up will be awarded 7,800 points and the third/fourth-placed finishers 6,420 points.

Super 300

The Super 300 feature some more of the relatively minor Badminton tournaments to take place every year. This falls under the Grade 2 (Level 5) category in the tournament ranking system and has 11 tournaments every year.

A new India Open has been included for this Super 300 level for the 2023-2026 level as well. The other 10 tournaments under this level consist of the Thailand Masters, Spain Masters, US Open, Korea Masters, Germany Open, Hylo Open, Swiss Open, Taipei Open, New Zealand Open and a new France Open has also been in this category.

The winners of these tournaments will receive 7,000 points, with the runners-up receiving 5,950 points and third/fourth finishers receiving 4,900 points.

Super 100

The Super 100 tournaments fall under the category of Grade 2 (Level 6). These tournaments usually feature some of the lower-ranked shuttlers from around the world trying to climb the ladder in the BWF World Rankings.

This year, there were six tournaments set to take place at this level. The Odisha Open, which happened in Cuttack in January, took place at this level. However, the Akita Masters 2022 in Japan has been cancelled due to Covid-19 restrictions.  At this point, the Canada Open and Vietnam Open in September are to be held in the Super 100 category as well as the Indonesia Masters Super 100 in October.

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