Of course these lists are never definitive and just a bit of fun comparing over different eras with different tournaments, you could probably make an argument for every name on the list either way, would any of the oldies stand a chance against current top players? I can give you a reason why people like Saina are on the list. Saina has forged a path done by no other females from India like first to medal in olympics, first Indian to win WJC etc. This achieves recognition as one of the "greatest player". She has achieved so much considering, so that can gain much admiration. Most of the names are considered, not just talent, otherwise there would be no women on the list at all. There could be loads of criteria to look at like how succesful how young(taufik, Gade) from what country, how hard the talent pool was in that era, bla bla bla. You could never create a right or wrong list, just a bit of fun.
Lee Chong Wei is not included in the list because of his current doping-affair. And the list is subjective, as it also included the public influence of the players etc. Thats maybe why many chinese players are not in the list, because they are "just" one champion among many others, while e.g. Saina is an idol of a whole country.
Yes, all these top N list are subjective. We should just read it for fun only and no need to argue. Even using formulas to calculate ranking, LCW has been ranked #1 for many year, and we all know LD is the true #1.
I am so surprised that I have to refute this claim. If doing good according to your country's standards is also a parameter, then Michelle li should be higher than Saina. Living in Canada, according to Canadian standards she has done much more for Canada, then Saina has done for India. So would you have Kristy Gilmour, a Scot, where there is absolutely no tradition of badminton in recent history, who has done remarkably well for her country. You can come up with many many players who have done much better than what their country generally does. Also, in the case of Saina, while She definitely is one of the most successful players, India has had few other successful players on par with her like Prakash Padukone, who won ALL England, which was the biggest tournament of those days. You can also apply this to other sports. Soon I'm sure you will come with all kinds of absurdities. Greatest by its very definition has to imply absolute greatness, measured on their absolute scores of success in the sport, not on criterion like those. At least to me it seems counter-intuitive that a person A (Saina here) much "greater" than person B(Wang Yihan here) is regularly smashed off their daylights by the "lesser player." (Saina has something like a 1-8 record against Wang Yihan) Yes, Saina is more popular than Wang Yihan or LXR, in part of the reasons you mentioned, but popularity and greatness while correlated are still different. They have no causation.
Oops... li michelle is popular than saina??...... By the by , who is she?... ... just kidding... Dont worry.. In any way, I accept craigandy's claim at any cost.... Saina is a trend setter for whole set of youngsters in her country.. I accept [MENTION=116417]iceananas[/MENTION] regarding this... He is 100% correct...
I don't have the answer but i wouldnt put them in by the same logic because marin and rats not really done much yet, yes a wc title but still kind of flash in the pan. [MENTION=117083]Devendra[/MENTION] Li Michelle nor kirsty gilmour are anywhere near in the same stature league as Saina, I disagree that they have done anywhere near as much for their respective country's than Saina's impact for India. they have done well for there country but they are too small time imo Even considering their talent for their origin country
By sheer impact on absolute numbers of people, Saina must be up on the list and Michelle & Kirsty are nowhere near her. India's population is bigger than Canada and Scotland combined! Well the list is a bit of fun. LCW should be there as should be Han Ai Ping. I would not dismiss Judy Hashman, Gillian Gilks, Sven Pri so lightly! Lol. It's a tough list to compile
Because India is huge! So yes, more people will be influenced. But that is the point, if Michelle Li had actually done as good as Saina in absolute sense, she still wouldn't have been that popular.
Where did I say that Michelle is more popular than Saina? I said that if a country's past performance and its relative stature is important, then Michelle and Carolina have done much more than Saina. India still had a few past badminton players, and we almost always had a badminton tradition, though we didn't win at top tier. Spain never has had players, and Carolina has achieved more than the wildest imaginations for a normal spaniard.
It seems to me that Badzine.de has no intention for the list to be taken seriously writ large. The most sensible,inarguable thing they did right was to place Lin Dan right at the very top where no sane person would have a hoot against. The rest of the placings, whether admissions and omissions, all give rise to disputes and controversies. Simply put, Badzine.de's list has little or no credibility. Perhaps, the article is meant solely for the German public?
Saina is popular all over the world....I dont wanna restrict that to a particular country. Never ever even in anybody's dreams , carolina or Michelle will surpass Saina.. That's for sure.. We can give some benefit of doubt to both these girls before winning a superseries title . Then we can talk about them.. Li michelle....!!.. Atleast carolina was able to beat all top ranked chinese players (then shall i take liberty to say that she is better than li xuerui and wang yihan then?? )and was able to grab world championship medal.. But still could not beat saina even for one time.. what about Li michelle...???.. This article is not written by anybody from the country she(saina) live. It is posted in germany by a neutral author..
If Li had done as good as Saina I reckon she would be in it regardless of number of supporters. If Li starts doing as well as Saina, She will be super popular throughout the world among badminton fans, everybody loves that kinda stuff. My point is - first off you need to have proven yourself at the very top level of badminton to be considered, that leaves a lot of players, then other factors can come into play to sort the 100's into only 50. Li, Gilmour and even Marin and May have not proven themselves at the very top level, they fall at the first important hurdle.
So you are telling me that according to your definition of "great", Saina Nehwal is greater than Li Xuerui, so great that Saina has a head to head of 8-2 against LXR, with having surpassed LXR in not a single metric that I can think of. Is that what you are saying? I will make my own list of great and post in a couple of days.
Beating alone is not important. Chinese players are also humans. They should not be treated like robots with their achievements ignored. Carolina has a negative H2H against LXR. Also, Carolina has not achieved anything similar to LXR. For me, greatness is defined as the sum total of your performance in your playing career. Your achievements etc. The following metrics will be most important for that: 1. Olympic Performance 2. World Championship Performance 3. H2H against your main opponents during your playing days/your generation 4. Win/loss ratio in major events equal or above the level of SuperSeries 5. Major Titles (defined above the level of Superseries)
No wonder........ Why do you so much worry about saina's name inclusion ... Do you have anything against her?... If you want to see any of your favourite player's inclusion, you can directly ask the author... They may consider your plea... But instead, you are targeting saina's name alone.. There are 50 players in the list.. If at all, they dont know anything, they could not run a magazine successfully.
Even just in terms of popularity, it's not fair nor representative to measure a player's fan base in his/her own country with another player of another , say smaller, country, and then use the absolute numbers to say which player is or deserves to be rated higher. Sure,assuming Saina is most popular in India, so is Marin in Spain, Intanon in Thailand, Michelle Li in Canada, respectively. But in the badminton world at large, is there a credible survey or online poll to give us a reasonable comparison among the players concerned? Did Badzine.de conduct such an indicative estimate in Germany itself before determining their popularity ranking? I doubt so.Nonetheless, popularity is a rather subjective criterion as opposed to those objective metrics proposed by Devendra above, and understandably should not be relied on too much to determine the top 50 greatest players of all time without giving due weight to the hard facts. In that case, how or on what criteria did Badzine.de rate Saina in the top 50 while leaving out Marin, Intanon , and Michelle? Based on their respective titles won, their individual H2H, their world ranking record over a period of time, and what else? Badzine.de didn't say anything specific, I supposed (I don't read German and the said article wasn't translated into English, CMIIW). Therefore, I'm left to conclude that the list is arbitrary as far as most of the named players are concerned, not to mention those unnamed whom many of us believe ought to be included, notably, Lee CW, for one. I'm quite certain that should this forum were to conduct a similar poll but with the criteria clearly specified and largely agreed upon, it would undoubtedly yield a very different result; even then, I'd still expect quite a bit of argument and debate on the outcome as to the player's standing and their inclusion or exclusion as the case may be, but , on the whole, there should be considerably less cause for controversy and be more widely acceptable vis-a-vis the Badzine.de list, I make bold to say. Talking about LXR, I recall Sportskeeda a couple years ago once posted an article by Dev Sukumar titled:"Li Xuerui: A great at 21?" http://www.sportskeeda.com/badminton/li-xuerui-a-great-at-21. And how many titles has she won to date, as well as how long has she been world number 1, including being the first and only WS to break the 100K mark in BWF ranking points?
