Unusual tournament calender 2006

Discussion in '2006 Tournaments' started by Cheung, Nov 16, 2005.

  1. Cheung

    Cheung Moderator

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    Jan - All England moved to beginning of year with Swiss and German Opens. Wilson is sponsoring the Swiss Open.

    German Open upgraded to 3*

    March - Phillipine Open . Graded 4* :eek:

    Dutch Open downgraded to 'A' event :( (hey, the name is Dutch Open International)

    There are two dates for Indonesian Open.
    i) 31 May-4 June is a 6* (upgraded)

    ii) and again in Aug :confused:


    Aug - Thai and Taipei Opens linked but Asia MVP cup is on same dates as TaiPei Open.

    Aug - HK and China Opens moved to July. Probably something to do with the Asian games

    Aug - Macau gets a 1* tournament. Not sure if it was held this year. It's only been a satellite before.

    Sept - World Champs!! :cool:

    Oct - Japan (prev in April) and Korea (prev in Jan) Opens

    Nov - Danish and Dutch Open (Dutch again :confused: but the name is slightly different from the Feb tournament)

    Dec - India Open 1* and Greece Open 2* :eek: When was the last time there was a Greece Open?

    Summary - big changes in the calender. We also see a number of tournaments being upgraded (though a a fair number of other are yet to be confirmed).

    With some of the upgraded tournaments, it seems that this year and next year sees sponsorship money is coming back strongly after the dark days of the Asian crisis. Maybe it's a part of corporate strategy. Badminton may be a cheaper option to increase brand awareness, especially in Asia where more people play. Governments maybe trying to increase their profile and certainly, the 1* tournaments of India, Macau and the Greece Open might be examples.

    Phillipine Open I guess it's mostly private money. Badminton has got really popular after the Asian games were held there. MVP cup and now this Open can only stimulate more interest.

    Disapppointing is the lack of Canadian Open. North American badminton really needs it to support the US Open. This year, strangely, US Open got cancelled whereas the OCBC tournament went ahead.
     
  2. seven

    seven New Member

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    Greece had a two star event this year already (sept).

    IBF has to do something about tournaments hierarchy (instead of messing around with scoring system).
    There are more and more equivalent GP events, so there'll be no chance of having all the good players at the same place at the same time... :(
    They should at least increase the money needed to get each star level.
     
  3. Cheung

    Cheung Moderator

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    Really???
    I missed it! damm! :mad:

    We still need an equal spread across the range. I think that is still the case. Lesser ranked players can still get points in the minor tournaments.

    How about not giving a 4* ranking or higher unless live internet scoring and updated results are guarenteed?
     
  4. seven

    seven New Member

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    How could you?? :p
    Where did you disappear at that time?

    "Official" ;) BF thread is here : http://www.badmintonforum.com/vb/showthread.php?t=27210

    Yes, live internet update should definately be compulsary!!!!! :mad::mad::mad:

    The problem is that now lesser ranked players can even go to 6* tournaments to gain points, as most of the best players aren't there!! (China Masters for ex).

    IBF come on do your job!! :mad:
     
  5. jamesd20

    jamesd20 Moderator

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    Prize money should be an incentive to enter the tournament, but shouldn't bethte criterion for awarding ranking points. IBF could allocate ranking points by using some kind of formula that takes int account the standard (according to rankings) of the competition. For example if all the top 128 players entered a tournament this would theoretically be the most challenging tournament, therfore gain the most ranking points.

    This would create problems for lesser national teams constrained by budget when they enter for tournaments hoping to qualify for ranking tournaments (Eg WC) and find many top players drop out, thus spending lots of their budget, and maybe not receiving the points.

    To reiterate and agree with Cheung and seven, the ranking systems should not be based solely on prize money, but should take other factors such as crowd numbers, media usage (inc. TV, Radio, net), and standard of players entering.
     
  6. jamesd20

    jamesd20 Moderator

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    I also Predict there will be some surprise results at the All England, with the preceeding 4* and 3* swiss and german opens respectively coming i nconsectutive weeks.

    There is likely to be some skipping the german open unfortunately.
     
  7. badMania

    badMania Regular Member

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    The German Open and Indonesian Open HAVE BEEN upgraded to 3* and 6* WGP events from 2005 onwards. No big surprises that the ratings are retained for 2006.

    I am not sure abt the Indonesian Open in Aug. The dates in June are arranged to coincide with the Malaysian and Singapore Open.

    The Dutch Open in March is probably a small tournament (Grade A). The official one (Yonex Dutch Open) is usually held before the Denmark Open and carries a 2* rating.

    India Open is supposed to be held this year, but, they are postponed to next year. The Greece Open was held this year actually! It was a 2* event. It must be the after-effect of the Athens Olympics.

    The main reasons for the shuffling of calendar dates are several big sporting events happening in 2006. The Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, the Football World Cup in Germany, and of course not forgetting the Asian Games in Doha.

    I think IBF's strategies in arranging the tournaments have been consistent. They try to arrange events in neighbouring countries together in 2-3 consecutive weeks. This will save the cost and energy of flying in and out.
    Therefore, the calendar is arranged this way:

    January -- European Tour 1 (Swiss Open, German Open, All England)
    Feb -- Thomas & Uber Cup Continental Group Stage
    March -- Asian Tour 1 (Phillipine Open, China Masters, Asian Badminton Championships 2006)
    March -- Commonwealth Games
    April -- European Championships 2006
    End of April - Early May -- Thomas & Uber Cup Finals 2006
    June -- Asian Tour 2 (Indonesian Open, Singapore Open, Malaysia Open)
    July-Mid Aug -- Asian Tour 3 (Thailand Open, Chinese Taipei Open, Macau Open, Hong Kong Open, China Open, Indonesia Open again??)
    July -- MVP Cup (Asia vs Europe)
    Aug -- US Open
    End of Aug - Early Sep -- NZ Open
    Sep -- World Championships 2005
    Oct -- Asian Tour 4 (Japan Open, Korea Open)
    Mid Oct - Mid Nov -- European Tour 2 (Bitburger Open, Denmark Open, Dutch Open)
    Dec -- Asian Games 2006
    Dec -- European Tour 3 (Bulgaria Open, Greece Open) + India Open
     
  8. Cheung

    Cheung Moderator

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    Aargh, now that BM has pointed out all the things I missed... :crying:

    It's been a really busy year for me so I must have missed a lot.

    I really cannot claim to be a badmintonfanatic anymore :( :p
     
  9. seven

    seven New Member

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    Shame on you!! :p;)
     
  10. Neil Nicholls

    Neil Nicholls Regular Member

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    Agree.
    butnot just the standard of the competition. The standard of each event (MS,MD,LS..).
     
  11. event

    event Regular Member

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    I don't agree.

    Granted, there is obviously a problem with fairness. It doesn't make a lot of sense for some of those European and North American players to get all these points, sometimes to the point of breaking into the top 20, for winning tournaments with no top players. We have all these Canadians in the top 30 and yet they virtually never beat Asian players. A couple of years ago Korea's top middle and high school players swept the medals at the Canadian Open.

    However, fairness isn't the IBF's priority right now. The priority is growing the sport. Now if throwing money at a tournament doesn't draw the big names even when this increases the number of rating points that are at stake, what effect do you think removing the points attachment will have? Right now, increasing the prize money is one way tournaments without a reputation have of moving up the ladder, albeit slowly, and the points system rewards that kind of attempt. If the points don't come with it, how does a tournament with no reputation attract players? Building a reputation is very difficult. It is all well and good to say that IBF should make live-scoring and good websites a priority, but that won't draw players. The All-England draws players because it has the prestige even without the prize money. How do you build prestige? Korea is trying. They've been no. 1 in prize money for the last 4 years but still they suffer from a bad turnout. Lin Dan has skipped the last 3. Taufik and all the top Chinese players skipped this year despite WC points being up for grabs and despite the lack of any tournaments close by on the schedule. Maybe the prize money isn't enough but without it, how do you grow the sport? If the rich countries in North America suddenly got serious about promoting the sport and increased their prize money, it wouldn't be enough but the points might help.
     
  12. jamesd20

    jamesd20 Moderator

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    But If the good media coverage is there, such as Live internet scoring, tv reports, newpapers, then it will make the sport and tournament more user friendly and attract more casual observers, and still retain the core base. This will then in itself increase the money on offer, and attract the players. and using a standar based competition, more ranking points.

    Which comes first though, the chicken or the egg?


    Prestige is another thing entirely however.
     
  13. Cheung

    Cheung Moderator

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    Just checked worldbadminton.net again. China Open and HK Open now moved to November.
     
  14. BTC2004

    BTC2004 Regular Member

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    Does anyone know when Malaysia and Singapore will be held? I hear rumours that Malaysia open will not be in KL but in KK, Sabah, any truth?
    Will be nice to make a trip to see both:p
     
  15. event

    event Regular Member

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    I haven't heard. It was in KK in 2002, though. I took a look at the facility when I was there recently. If you fly MAS from overseas, they sometimes give you the same price for KK-KL as for just KL. I heard the domestic flights to and from Borneo got really cheap a few years ago, too.

    All the IBF says is that they both might be back-to-back in June
     
    #15 event, Dec 2, 2005
    Last edited: Dec 2, 2005
  16. badMania

    badMania Regular Member

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    Current IBF scheduling is: Indonesia Open; Singapore Open and Malaysia Open (end of May-mid of June)
     
  17. hyu =)

    hyu =) Regular Member

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    Tentatively, according to worldbadminton.net, the finals of Singapore Open will be on 11th June and the finals of Malaysia Open will be on 18th June. But it's still not confirmed yet! ARGH!!! I hope it'll be comfirmed soon... Anyone planning to come over to watch?
     
  18. event

    event Regular Member

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    I hadn't looked at the IBF calendar in a while but now that I do I see a couple of other interesting things. There are two long strings of 4 big-money events. Four in a row in May-June! Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and Taipei. It now says Malaysian Open will be in Kuching, Sarawak, by the way.

    Then in October, after a week break following the WC, another 4-event string starts: China, Japan, Korea, and Denmark. Actually, a week break after Korea and then 2 events in Denmark and the Netherlands. Last one is only a 2*, though.

    That's a lot more concentration than we usually see.
     

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