Explained: Why Satwik-Chirag haven't qualified for BWF World Tour Finals despite World No 2 ranking

India’s men’s doubles team of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have had a sublime year. They won the Asian Games gold medal in a season that also saw them rise to the top of the BWF World Rankings. The Indian pairing won the Swiss Open, Indonesia Open and Korea Open for a variety of Super 1000 and Super 500 events. The Asian Games gold medal was India’s first in the continental showpiece extravaganza. Overall the Indian team reached the final in four tournaments across the year including the China Masters in Shenzhen where they finished second best. Despite all these staggering achievements in 2023, Satwik and Chirag will not be part of the season-ending BWF World Tour Finals in Hangzhou. The tournament is slated to be played between 13-17 December and marks the end of the calendar year. What are BWF World Tour Finals? BWF World Tour Final is a big-ticket event that features the international circuit’s eight best players across the season. It includes singles (men’s and women’s) and doubles (men’s, women’s and mixed) categories. Why have Satwik and Chirag not qualified? At the cut off point (21 November), Satwik and Chirag were 13th in the list with 69,240 points. While the South Korean pairing of Kang Min Hyuk and Seo Seung Jae were top with 91,900 points. This despite the Indian team being fifth in the world at the time and the Koreans were placed sixth. The qualification criteria takes into consideration the 14 best tournaments over the past year. Meanwhile, the overall rankings count the best 10 tournaments in the same time period. As a result, Satwik and Chirag are tenth in the BWF World Tour Rankings as of 28 November while being World No 2 as per the rolling rankings. China Masters happened to be the Indian team’s 14th tournament in the 52-week cycle. It means their weaker performances can be removed and it is worth noting that Asian Games and Badminton Asia Championships have not been included in this calculation because they’re not BWF events.