The Badminton World Federation Superseries Finals goes off this week, with the action starting on December 13th from the Hamdan Sports Complex in the United Arab Emirates. This is the culmination of a season long series of events which started all the way back in March in Birmingham, England for the All England Super Series Premier. In total there are twelve tournaments in the Super Series across the course of the season before the Masters Finals. Representing England at the Super Series Masters Finals will be Chris and Gabby Adcock in the mixed doubles.
Men’s Singles
This men’s event is, more often than not, the headlining action at the Super Series Masters. It pulls together the top eight players from across the course of the season. Going as the top seed is Korea’s Son Wan-ho who will be looking to make up for his semi final disappointment last season against Viktor Axelsen. Son Wan-ho hasn’t managed to land a Men’s Singles title across the course of this season and therefore India’s Srikanth Kidambi, who won Super Series titles in Indonesia, Australia, Denmark and France this season could be the one to catch. He goes as the second seed and therefore in the opposite round robin group to Wan-ho. Malaysia’s Lee Chong Wei and Demkar Viktor Axelsen were the only other players to land more than one title in the Super Series season. But the standout performer was Kidambi and he is the value option at Betfair to walk off with the title.
Women’s Singles
Tai Tzu-ying from Chinese Taipei won last year’s Women’s title at the Masters over Korea’s Sung Ji-hyun. They are second and third seed respectively for the tournament this year, which will sadly be missing top Spaniard Carolina Marin who has withdrawn. Tai Tzu-ying won four titles in the Super Series season including the most recent one in Hong Kong. So she will be the main threat in the field while reigning champion Sung Ji-hyun hasn’t won a Super Series event this season but goes back as the third seed. The interesting name in the field is Japan’s Akan Yamaguchi who is the top seed. She went to the finals of the Asian Championship this year where she lost out against Tai Tzu-ying and she reached four Super Series finals this year, landing just the one win though. But she is a challenger and has a comfortable group to get out of. Still, the money should be on Tai Tzu-ying who is having a stunning season.
Men’s Doubles
Top seeds for the men’s doubles event is Marcus Fernaldi Gideon / Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo from Indonesia. They have pretty much owned the Super Series season having won six of the twelve events and they look pretty unstoppable. No-one is going to want to go up against them and they are carrying form into the Masters Finals as with recent wins in China and Hong Kong so they are clearly the ones to top. With doubles teams changing regularly last year’s winners from Malaysia Goh V Shem and Tan Wee Kiong are not around for a title defence but last year’s losing Masters Finals finalists Takeshi Kamura / Keigo Sonoda, are in the event as fifth seeds. Danish pair Mathias Boe / Carsten Mogensen who had to withdraw from competing in last year’s tournament will be a threat having won a couple of titles this season.
Women’s Doubles
The Women’s Doubles market is a little bit more open than the men’s is for badminton betting at Betfair. Going as the top seed for the event is Japanese pair Shiho Tanaka / Koharu Yonemoto with competitors Yuki Fukushima / Sayaka Hirota second seeds. Both pairings got their hands on one title each this season in the Super Series event but the real star performers and dark horses for this Masters Finals are Chen Qingchen / Jia Yifan who rattled off three titles across the course of the season and have every chance of powering their way to the title in this one. The won both the China and Hong Kong titles recently so they are in very good form and can cause an upset.
Mixed Doubles
The only British interest in the Masters Finals comes in the mixed doubles with Chris Adcock / Gabrielle Adcock lining up for England. They will be underdogs though having not won a single Super Series event throughout the course of the season. They did pull off a bit of surprise in last year’s Masters Finals by getting to the final itself against the odds when there were torn apart by Zheng Siwei and Chen Qingchen. Zheng Siwei / Chen Qingchen are the top seeds for this year’s event and it’s easy to see why as they have won four titles this season and with the withdrawal of Lu Kai / Huang Yaqiong then it should be pretty plain sailing off the top seed in the mixed doubles.
