Is the quality of this Indonesia Open good enough for 5 stars standard ? No Denmark player. No Korean top players or just one : Jun Jae Youn. Just a few european players : Nathan/Gail, Pi, ..... It seems that this tournament is the 'war' between Indonesia, China and Malaysia. So what do you think about the quality ?
you have names three of the top countires in badminton around playing in the tournament, plus the added pressure of the heat and crow in Indonesia makes it an exciting tournament - why should this not be a 5* tourney then?
The star status does not depend on who enters the tournament, but how much the prize money is. Inversely, you can also see good players playing in low-ranking tournaments. But let's see who the top missing people are: MS (in order of importance) Gade, Jonassen, Susilo, Boonsak, Shon, Park Tae Sang, some Europeans like Palyama, Joppien. Not that many IMHO. One or two players in with some chance and the others dark horses at best. WS Zhang Ning, Zhou Mi, Gong Ruina, Mia Audina, Yao Jie Do I need to go on? Quite a depleted field. Chance for also-rans to make a mark here. MD Top Danes and top Koreans (no news, have they retired?) Since the top Korean pairs are just missing generally, it looks like the only top pairs that are skipping Indonesia are Lars/Jonas and Jens/Martin, neither of them clear favourites for the title in presence of the Indon pairs. WD Gao/Huang, Wei/Zhao, Chien/Cheng Since the two Chinese pairs above are not making huge impacts anymore, I think the field is still strong. Some empty semi-final or quarter-final spots up for grabs. XD Jens/Mette, Chen/Zhao, Rasmussen/Olsen None of the above are title favourites even without taking into consideration the emerging talents (who are all there BTW). So looking at the overall picture, the only event which is visibly diminished is the WS event. The others are still quite strong, definitely on par with a 5* event.
The star level is based on prize money and not status. THe All-England is the most prestigious other than the world championships and Olympics, but it is only a 4 star tournament. There is an aggregate correlation between level of players and number of star, but every now and then, some top players may skip a particular event. For the men's events, the quality seems high enough without the top Korean and Danish players. For the women's, the quality is lower. This might be due to the fact that the tournament was postponed and is a year end tournament. Ron
