The 2022 HSBC BWF World Tour Finals will be kicking-off in Bangkok tomorrow. Today we will take a look at our European players participating in what will be the final tournament of the year. In the second part of our preview, we will focus on Viktor Axelsen from Denmark.
With an outstanding win-loss statistic of 47-2 in 2022 Viktor Axelsen is by far the most dominant player on the tour at the moment. After becoming Olympic Champion and winning the World Tour Finals in 2021 he continued his dominant performance this year. The only two players that could beat the Dane in 2022 are Loh Kean Yew (Singapore) and H. S. Prannoy (India). Both of them will also be fighting for the last title of the year in Bangkok this week.
Axelsen, who is leading the men’s singles world ranking for over one year straight now, is the head of Group A in the 2022 World Tour Finals. His opponents in group stage will be Prannoy (India), Kodai Naraoka (Japan), and Guang Zu Lu (China). The best two of the group will advance to the semifinals.
In Group B Chou Tien Chen (Chinese Taipei), Jonathan Christie (Indonesia), Anthony Ginting (Indonesia) and Loh Kean Yew (Singapore) will fight for a spot in the knock-out stage.
Axelsen, who has already won as many as seven tournaments this year, was also elected BWF Male Player of the year yesterday. “This award here with so many great nominees and so many amazing opponents is obviously a big thing. So I’m really really happy. Thank you so much to all the guys who think that I deserve this”, said Axelsen after the BWF Gala held on Monday in Bangkok.
In the World Tour Finals, this year’s top eight of each discipline will fight for the crown of the 2022 World Tour from 14 – 18 December in Bangkok, Thailand. With a total prize money of 1.500.000 US-Dollars it’s the biggest event of the year next to the world championships.
The first matches of the 2022 HSBC BWF World Tour Finals will start on Wednesday.
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