Unfreezing of World Junior Rankings to Begin 2 August 2022

Unfreezing of World Junior Rankings to Begin 2 August 2022
Riko Gunji, women's sngles winner of the last edition of the World Junior Championships in 2019.

The transition process to unfreeze the BWF World Junior Rankings towards a live, 52-week ranking on 3 January 2023 will begin on 2 August 2022 .

Due to the impact of COVID-19, the BWF World Junior Rankings were frozen as of 17 March 2020.

Transition Process

On 2 August 2022, the BWF World Junior Rankings will be updated to include all tournaments counting for the BWF Junior International Tournament Entry and Seeding Ranking List; this List will then be eliminated. The BWF World Junior Ranking will again be used for entry and seeding purposes for junior international tournaments.

For each week of the newly published ranking starting on 2 August 2022, an average of four weeks of historical World Junior Ranking results/points will be removed from the World Junior Rankings, commencing with those tournaments from Week 12 (March 2019), and finishing on 3 January 2023.

Transition Principles

Among the transition principles taken into account are that the tournament calendar is robust enough, with emphasis on the junior international and Grade 3 levels of tournaments. While the number of junior international tournaments hosted in each region is not consistent, it is adequate when the number of Grade 3 tournaments available is taken into consideration.

As Open tournaments counting towards BWF World Ranking also count for the BWF World Junior Ranking, the plan to unfreeze the BWF World Junior Ranking would consider its connection to the Open tournaments. Also, that Member Associations should have enough time to plan effectively for the BWF World Junior Championships and other key tournaments, and have enough notice to prepare for the start of the transition period.

Background

In January 2022, age ineligible players were removed from the frozen BWF World Junior Rankings.

Also in 2022, BWF implemented the BWF Junior International Tournament Entry and Seeding Ranking List, including all tournaments counting towards the currently frozen World Junior Rankings, and all eligible Grade 1, 2, 3, and junior international tournaments in 2021 and 2022. This ranking list is currently used for entry and seeding purposes for junior international tournaments.

PARTNERS