Sorry Galaxy but lots of the people here don't follow tennis. In addition, when you say something like "Goran ivanišević deserved his wimbledon title in 2001 even though he was invited to play and was ranked 125 before the tournament." you have no evidence to support your assertion. Your list of support is a bunch of wild cards that win tournaments, but you lack details in hard analysis of how it affects the sport of tennis as a whole. The BWF has its reasons for everything, but "because tennis did it" isn't a reason they want to convey to badminton fans across the world.
Sorry Pinkdawg but you also provide no evidence to support your assertion. And the BWF obviously follows tennis since they installed technology to call line shots, which tennis has been using for over a decade.
So since BWF is a decade behind than tennis, please expect the automatic wildcard in badminton to occur sometime in the next 7 yrs or so?
The delay for hawkeye was partly due to the physical differences between a non spherical shuttlecock and tennis ball. Anther delay is the amount of money involved in the game. Prize money for badminton (I.e. funding for tournaments) lags tennis a bit more than 15 years and hawkeye doesn't come cheap. Hawkeye is not really a good example to use. For wild cards, it would be quite enlightening to know how many wild cards are issued in tennis and the results of those wild cards. One can always point to Goran but it can be a statistical blip. His game was quite suited to the grass courts being a serve and volleyer. But for this thread, the wild card is detracting from the question of whether automatic qualification should be given. I would probably say yes in the future as that increases interest in the game. There was another former world champion (in doubles) who had difficulties in getting funding just to play in tournaments.
I agree Cheung. If people could throw away their bias against LD, etc, etc, and just think for the game of badminton, automatic qualification makes a lot of sense. It's good for the game of badminton and it's good for the fans. As for tennis, what I meant was that tennis has used innovation to make the game better. The reasons tennis organizers use "wild cards" is to ensure the best players are at the tournament. Similarly, for premier events in badminton, the organizers owe it to the fans to ensure the best players are there (assuming the players are willing). If a player is capable of winning the tournament, they need to be there - be it through wild cards or automatic qualification, etc. To be frank, I think even the runner up should deserve qualification for next year's championship. But I suppose I would limit it to the runner up as you have to draw a line somewhere. For the World Cup, I would support the winner and runner up getting qualification for the next World Cup, but that's just me.
But it was you who brought up Lin Dan's name in the first post of this particular thread. As much as you argue for a case based on Lin Dan and wild cards, there are the naysayers which quite rightly point out he has had a chance based on merit and his association hasn't selected him for this particular competition. So, to be convincing, perhaps try to rationalise argument where wild cards are not the focus of attention.
People want to watch Lin Dan play. It's as simple as that. Had the defending champion been somebody else, there would have been a less heated or no debate at all. Whatever the argument, Lin Dan remains THE player who is able to bring to fans badminton of the highest quality. As a fan of badminton, it's a no-brainer to have Lin Dan in a world championship. There're also those small-minded who would cheer up to see him go. It's a shame.
Perhaps the lack of automatic qualification for defending champions should have spurred Lin Dan into action to qualify in time. A separate question is: did Lin Dan assume he would automatically qualify for the World Championship? It's a difficult question to answer. If I recall correctly, in commentary, Gill Clark mentioned that Lin Dan wanted to compete in the Superseries Finals. We'll have to see if Lin Dan can steal another title then. If Lin Dan wanted to qualify for the WC, but didn't, I might have a different view on the subject. Had he tried very hard to qualify for the WC yet failed, he would be different from the speedy, smashing, energetic Super Dan we all fell in love with. We're focused on the wrong tournament. He should show that he still is Super Dan, and contend with Datuk Lee Chong Wei just like old times.
The reason LD did not compete in the qualification period is discussed in LD's thread. It was not up to his own choice, but was banned from tournaments by LYB.
That's unfortunate that LD was prevented by LYB from competing in tournaments to get the ranking points needed to enter the WC. However, I would still support the defending champion getting automatic qualification even if he/she had no ranking points at all (such as last year). If you can manage to win the WC year after year, even if you have no ranking points, you are the best player there is. You deserve to defend your title the next year.
I dunno what your point is. The fact that he's the current World Champion is a large part of what makes this particular conversation quite different to others on the topic of wildcards and automatic qualification and I don't understand why people want to dismiss it. It's an important point. The champion can't defend his title.
Agreed with Tybalt. If BWF made this change, it would affect the WC in the future. LD isn't part of this year's WC, but hopefully his omission would knock some sense into the BWF to make changes for the better. Let's look towards the future and not the present. I would want too see the champion in WS, WD, MD, XD all get to defend their title in the next year.
If badminton were popular and publicized among media, I think it would be great to see the decision of wild cards be based of a public vote
The important point is why has it taken 33 years for it to be an issue? Change it because of one example? I still think the solution is to expand the entry. Then, there is flexibility in inviting the former world champions by two wild cards for each category. After all, it wouldn't be good publicity if the world champion goes AWOL, fails to fulfill contributions to the game, doesn't play any tournaments, becomes a criminal and still goes to the World Championships.
Let's not forget that Lin Dan during his long hiatus was still indirectly promoting the sport in all his activities outside badminton and directly when he competed in the domestic league as well as incidentally participating in Peter Gade's Farewell Match, and all of that mainly just for being who he is as a badminton icon. Furthermore, in 2013 during his long break, he was appointed a Laureus sport ambassador for which he went to Rio de Janeiro,Brazil, to fulfill his duties. Personally I feel that all professional athletes who have devoted their youth and best years of their lives should be allowed and even encouraged to take a sufficient long break for whatever reasons personal or otherwise , eg, to set up family, do other things in life that they always wanted to do but never found the time, catch up with their families and spend quality time with loved ones, forced injury layoff, resume academic or other pursuits, etc or simply to rekindle their love of the sport or just to recharge themselves. As I've said before, you take a rest so as to travel further. More importantly, their is life outside badminton or any sport for that matter, to make our life more complete and fulfilling. As a former world chess champion ,Anatoly Karpov, including a few others used to say, chess is my life but my life is not only chess. To add, the late world chess champion , Mikhail Botvinnik, after winning the 1948 world title actually took three years off to finish his Doctorate in Engineering, after which he defended his title in 1951 without having to go through the qualification process - by the way, in chess, automatic qualification for the defending champions is the norm till today; in tennis, Kim Clijsters took two whole year off to start a family, giving birth to a child, and then won the US open on a wild card entry; Goran Ivanesivic, who retired and came back to win at Wimbledon as a wild card; and we can cite other examples in other sports. When Lee Hyun Il retired and come back three or four times, nobody is complaining but even welcomes it. So isn't it great, I'd say it's a blessing for badminton, that Lin Dan decides to make a serious comeback? Unless, of course, you've your agenda for thinking otherwise. For the sake of the sport at large, objectively speaking, it is always a good thing to see any player make a comeback as long as they are capable of contributing to the sport. I trust that's not just my opinion, ask Dr Kang, the ex-BWF president. To be exact, the OP's thread asks about automatic qualification for defending champions, not for Lin Dan specifically, but all defending/reigning champions in general. Implementing that would definitely simplify and clarify matters and still leave wild cards available for special cases or be used as the tournament organizer or BWF deem fit. Whether we should increase the number of entries is beside the point but worth considering as that would allow much lower-ranked players with outside chances of winning a chance to compete as well ( but , as expected, cost concerns and the resultant lengthening of the tournament will be issues to take into account). Putting aside our personal preferences or biases, anything that is ultimately for the good of the sport overall should be supported for indeed badminton is larger than any single player however great he/she is. Broadly speaking, I feel that automatic qualification for defending champions in the world championships may even be considered for extension in other big tourneys, say the four Premier SuperSeries and,perhaps, the SSF itself, as they can be regarded as badminton's Grand Slams (anyway, that's another point, good to have but not essential). Pardon me for being long-winded, some of the points bear repeating, and that's just my humble opinion. Lastly, as an aside, we've heard of the sad state of affairs the WC'14 has fallen into with several last-minute unexpected withdrawals due to retirement (Du Pengyu), injuries (Tantowi, Hendrawan and K Tago),and sickness (Simon Santoso). All the more reason why there should be flexibility and proper rules in place to ensure all the top contenders are included to maintain the highest level of competition at the world championships as befitting the stature of world champions.
Correction, I mean Mohd Ahsan's worsening lower back pain, not Hendrawan's (another mistake, it should be Hendra Setiawan), my apologies.
Interesting thoughts in your second paragraph. On the point of it only just becoming an issue, the simplest retort I can provide on my phone is that it shouldn't really be an issue. It is in fact rather laughable.
Yup, this should be for all categories and not just MS - we should also apply it to WS, WD, MD, and XD. And I agree we should apply this to SS as well.
