SINGAPORE – The national badminton players’ road to the Paris Olympics in 2024 kicks off at the Malaysia Masters from May, and fans will be able to catch them in action at home a month later, when the US$850,000 (S$1.15 million) Singapore Badminton Open returns to the Singapore Indoor Stadium from June 6 to 11.
The “Paris Ranking Lists” – which is separate from the world rankings – will be used to award quota places in the five events at the Olympics, and each list will be based on results achieved from May 1, 2023 to April 28, 2024.
The Singapore Open will be the third event within this window, following the May 23-28 Malaysia Masters and May 30-June 4 Thailand Open, both of which are Super 500 events.
These are on the third tier in terms of ranking points offered, behind the World Tour Finals – which offers the same points as the Super 1000 – and Super 750.
In 2022, the Badminton World Federation announced that the Singapore Open would be upgraded to a Super 750 event for the next four years. As a result, all the top 15 singles players and top 10 doubles pairs are required to compete. And this year, players will have added incentive with Olympic qualification points at stake.
Men’s singles world No. 8 Loh Kean Yew recovered from a group-stage exit at the Tokyo Olympics in July 2021 to become world champion months later. He is determined to make it to Paris in a bid for Singapore’s first Olympic badminton medal.
The 25-year-old, who is currently competing at the German Open, said: “One of my biggest focus areas for the 2023 season is to do well during the Olympic qualifying period, as representing Singapore in the Olympics will always be a great honour.”
At the 2022 Singapore Open, Loh reached the semi-finals before losing to Indonesia’s Anthony Ginting. Looking to improve on that result, he added: “This is always an event I look forward to because it’s a very nice feeling when I can hear and feel the support from the home crowd, and I hope to do well this year.”
Ticket sales start from Friday via ticketmaster.sg and early bird (until March 31) season tickets are priced from S$100 to S$350.
