Last week’s tournaments, the ORLEN Polish Open and the YONEX Swiss Open, were the last events in which players could earn qualification points for the 2023 European Games. The European Games will be held in Kraków, Poland, from 21 June to 2 July 2023. The badminton competition will be hosted in Tarnow, about 80 km east of Kraków from 26 June to 2 July.
Here are the lists of players that are qualified for the continental Olympic competition as per the BWF World Ranking of 28 March 2023:
All players on these lists are qualified by their world ranking position but will need to be nominated by their National Olympic Committee (NOC) in order to be eligible to play in Tarnow.
32 players in men’s and women’s singles and 16 pairs in the three doubles disciplines will participate in the European Games. In the published lists of qualified players, there are still four open spots – one in each discipline except mixed doubles. These universality places will be allocated by the EOC in agreement with Badminton Europe by 31 March in order to give countries that are not yet qualified in any discipline a chance to participate in the competition.
Last minutes decisions
While some players sealed their qualification weeks ago, there were quite some interesting changes in the last week of the qualification process.
The most prominent player to qualify last minute was Christo Popov from France. Popov was ranked at position nine in the European Ranking before the Swiss Open. As his brother Toma Junior was far ahead of him and two players of the same country must both be in the top eight to qualify, Christo had to win his opening round in Basel to earn important ranking points and climb one spot in the list. His first-round win over Kiran George from India gave him the needed points to be able to qualify for the European Games.
There was an even more dramatic situation in women’s singles: Vivien Sandorhazi from Hungary took over the spot from her compatriot Agnes Korosi last minute by reaching the quarterfinals at the Polish Open while Korosi already lost one round earlier. The NOC of Hungary will now decide which player will be nominated, and it shall be interesting to see if the final ranking will also be the deciding parameter for this decision.
But it is not only the ranking that counts. One player on the list that will probably not step on court in Tarnow is Toby Penty from England. The men’s singles player is still ahead of his compatriot Johnnie Torjussen and qualified for Great Britain. But as Penty has announced the end of his professional career in September 2022, Team GB will most likely nominate a different player.
The final list of participants will be published on 2 May 2023.