Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia’s reigning men’s doubles world champions – Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik moved up one spot to World No. 4 in the latest Badminton World Federation (BWF) rankings released on Tuesday.
The new rankings saw Chia/Soh overtake their idol – Mohamad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan who slid down one place to World No. 5.
Chia/Soh emerged as world champions on August 28, 2022, by beating Setiawan/Ahsan in the final 21-19, 21-14. The Malaysian duo has accumulated a total of 90,328 points while the Indonesian pair has a total of 89,495 points.
Takuro Hoki/Yugo Kobayashi of Japan remained the World No. 1 pair in the world with 102,050 points followed by Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo of Indonesia in World No. 2 with 96,527 points.
The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games champions – Lee Yang/Wang Chi-Lin of Taiwan were ranked world No. 3 with a total of 96,098 points.
The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games bronze medalists from Malaysia are currently preparing for the upcoming two tournaments that will take place in Europe – the Denmark Open (October 18 to October 23) and the French Open (October 25 to October 30).
“Thank you to everyone who continues to support us. Our focus now is to prepare for the tournaments in Europe,” said Chia.
Meanwhile, two other Malaysian men’s doubles pairs, Teo Ee Yi/Ong Yew Sin and Goh Sze Fei/Nur Izzuddin were ranked World No. 9 and World No. 10 respectively.
In men’s singles, Singapore’s Loh Kean Yew surged two positions to World No. 5 while Kento Momota of Japan dropped to World No. 7. Viktor Axelsen, Anders Antonsen, and Lee Zii Jia are still the top three men’s singles players of the world.
Meanwhile, last week’s Vietnam Open women’s singles runner-up Goh Jin Wei is now the official No. 1 women’s singles player from Malaysia when she soared six places to rank World No. 44 while Kisona Selvaduray is ranked World No. 46. Akane Yamaguchi, Tai Tzu Ying, An Se Young, Chen Yu Fei, Carolina Marin rounded up the top 5 women’s singles rankings.
Korea’s Kim So Yeong/Kong Hee Yong created a little surprise in this week’s world rankings when the Korean pair captured the World No. 1 spot from reigning World Champions – Chen Qing Chen/Jia Yi Fan of China. Another Korean pair – Lee So Hee/Shin Seung Chan remained at World No. 3.
In mixed doubles, Dechapol Puavaranukroh/Sapsiree Taerattanachai led an unchanged top 3 as Yuta Watanabe/Arisa Higashino sat at number two and Zheng Si Wei/Huang Ya Qiong at three.
