BWF blunder sends media in China into a frenzy

KUALA LUMPUR: A blunder by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) had the media in China in a frenzy.

They were excited to learn that Lin Dan would finally take over the number one spot from Lee Chong Wei in the Super Series ranking.

The confusion arose because the BWF had forgotten to include the points won by Chong Wei at the India Open in April in their Super Series ranking.

The mistake, however, was rectified by the BWF yesterday – almost two months later.

As of today, Chong Wei is still the runaway leader in the Super Series rankings after having won the Malaysia Open, All-England and India Open while Lin Dan is in second position after winning only the Korea Open so far this year.

Lin Dan has a chance to catch up if he wins the ongoing Singapore Open for the first time tomorrow.

Three-time world champion Lin Dan can only take over the No. 1 position from Chong Wei if he wins next week’s Indonesia Open and Chong Wei crashes out in the early rounds in Jakarta.

Chong Wei was quite amused over the whole incident.

“I did not expect this mistake from the BWF. But I was more surprised with the excitement among the Chinese media over this. They splashed news that Lin Dan had finally taken over after four years. It must have meant a lot to them,” he said.

“They used to say that the rankings did not matter to him (Lin Dan),” added the Malaysian sarcastically.

Chong Wei has been the King of Super Series since the tournament’s inception in 2007.

Posted by Lucas Liau on 9:39 AM. Filed under Latest News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0