The BWF World Tour caravan will continue in the land of Indonesia even after the conclusion of the Indonesia Masters saga. As the prestigious Super 1000 tournament, Indonesia Open is lining up and will be followed by right after the completion of the ongoing Super 500 at the capital city of the country, Jakarta.
We witnessed an enthralling Badminton action at the Indonesia Masters stage which created an extravagant excitement for the main event. Badminton fans around the globe are hyped up for the prestigious event where they will get to see the World’s biggest Baddies battling against each other in the country which is popularly known as The Emerald of the Equator. The prestigious tournament was founded in 1982 and has hosted 40 editions to date.
The Badminton World Federation (BWF) restructured Grade 2 tournaments in 2018 and categorised Super Series events into six levels. Since then the Indonesia Open was included in the World Tour Super 1000 category which is the second-biggest event in the Grade 2 hierarchy. It is among Big Threes along with the All England Open and China Open who hold the highest weightage of points to qualify for the BWF World Tour Finals competition.
Dates
Indonesia Open will be commencing on 14th June 2022, just a day after the final event of Indonesia Masters which will be held on 12th June. The tournament usually takes place in the June-July window annually except for the previous edition where it was organised in November 2021 due to the Covid-19 chaos.
It will be a six-day extravaganza at the Equatorial Emerald as the podium finishers will be announced by June 19 which is the closing date for the tournament.
Venues
Will Lakshya Sen be able to sustain his Thomas Cup form further?
Indonesia Open has a tradition of the whole tournament being played at a solitary arena rather than multiple venues. And the 2022 edition of the prestigious Super 1000 tournament will be played at Gelora Bung Karno Sports Palace of Jakarta, the capital city of the country.
Jakarta is the hub of Indonesian sports and is widely regarded as the Badminton capital of the Southeast Asia region. The city hosted the most recent edition of the Asian Games in 2018 as the same Badminton event of the continental competition was also played in the same area.
The whopping number of 30 out of 40 editions of the Indonesia Open has been staged in Jakarta speaks volumes about the venue city. The most recent renovation of Gelora Bung Karno Sports Palace was completed in 2018, which upgraded the facility of the arena but reduced the seating capacity to 7,166.
In May 2022, the Badminton Association of Indonesia reported on their official page that they have sold out tickets of all categories online through their website. The PBSI officials also made an announcement that only 10% of tickets will be available on the spot as the rest of them are already sold through the online portal. The price range for tickets was from 90,000 IDR (₹483) to 12,50,000 IDR (₹6,708) at the Gelora Bung Karno Sports Palace.
Star Attraction
The star couple to be absent at the mega event
Top Badminton players around the world have already landed on the Equatorial Emerald to participate in the mega event where we can witness top-notch clashes between one of the biggest names in the Badminton World at the moment.
As the current World No.1 and the defending Singles champion, Viktor Axelson will be up against Japanese Kanta Tsuneyama who he defeated in the semifinals of the previous edition. India’s Badminton queen will be squaring off against the worldwide ninth-ranked Chinese shuttler He Bing Jiao on the first day of the tournament. Legendary Saina Nehwal was also supposed to take the battlefield along with Olympic Gold medalist Carolina Marin but the encounter is not possible due to the withdrawal of the 32-year-old Indian shuttler.
Saina along with her husband Parupalli Kashyap, the 2014 Commonwealth Gold medalist have pulled out of the Indonesia Open citing fitness and workload issues. The Indian contingent has only three triumphs in the Women’s Singles category of Indonesia Open and all of them belong to the ‘Steffi Saina’. On the other hand, Kashyap is yet to fully recover from the hamstring injury which kept him out of the action since January 2022.
Due to the withdrawal of the Men’s Singles stars such as Kidambi Srikanth, HS Prannoy, and Parupalli Kashyap, the billions of Indian hopes will be on the young shoulders of Lakshya Sen. The 20-year-old shuttler played a pivotal role in India’s first-ever Thomas Cup triumph a month ago.
Prize money and more…
| Points Distribution | Prize Money(Singles) | Prize Money(Doubles | |
| Winner | 12,000 | $84,000 | $88,000 |
| Runner-up | 10,200 | $40,800 | $42,000 |
| Semi-finalist | 8,400 | $16,800 | $16,800 |
| Quarter-finalist | 6,600 | $6,600 | $7,500 |
| Round of 16 | 4,800 | $3,600 | $3,900 |
| Round of 32 | 3,000 | $1,200 | $1,200 |
Around 256 Baddies from around the globe will be battling to claim the Indonesian Crown and the valuable Super 1000 points in order to qualify for the BWF World Tour Finals. While the responsibility of Indian representation will be on 25 players which is quite more impressive than the previous edition where 20 Baddies from the Indian contingent participated.
Like every other premier Badminton tournament, Indonesia Open also has five traditional categories of Men’s Singles, Women’s Singles, Men’s Doubles, Women’s Doubles, and Mixed Doubles. Every category will have five rounds of knockout games each, starting from the Round of 32 on an inaugural day. The Singles division will have 32 Baddies battling Individually while 64 Doubles players will be forming 32 pairs in each Doubles category.