India's Paralympic champ Nitesh, Axelsen, and Se-Young headline BWF annual awards nominations

Kuala Lumpur (The Uttam Hindu): India's Paralympic champion Nitesh Kumar has been nominated for the Men’s Para-Badminton Player of the Year honour as Olympic champions Denmark's Viktor Axelsen, South Korea's An Se Young headlined BWF Annual Awards nominations.

Besides, Axelsen and Seyoung Chen Qing Chen/Jia Yi Fan and Zheng Si Wei/Huang Ya Qiong are among the nominees for the BWF Player of the Year Awards for 2024.

Five marquee awards recognise the best player or pair in men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, and mixed doubles. These awards honour exceptional badminton talent, consistent performance throughout the season, fair play, personality, and profile across a 12-month eligibility period from 1 December 2023 to November 30, 2024, Badminton World Federation (BWF) said in a release.

In men’s singles, Axelsen faces competition from fellow nominees Shi Yu Qi (China), Chou Tien Chen (Taipei) and Anders Antonsen (Denmark) for Male Player of the Year, while Se-Young has been named alongside Wang Zhi Yi (China), Gregoria Mariska Tunjung (Indonesia) and Han Yue (China) for Female Player of the Year.

China's Liang Wei Keng/Wang Chang, silver medallists at Paris 2024, are among the nominees for Men’s Doubles Player of the Year and are up against All England champions Fajar Alfian/Muhammad Rian Ardianto (Indonesia), Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen (Denmark), and Kang Min Hyuk/Seo Seung Jae (South Korea).

The Women’s Doubles Player of the Year features both Olympic finalists, Chen Qing Chen/Jia Yi Fan (China) and compatriots Liu Sheng Shu/Tan Ning (China), winners of six titles this year, as well as Baek Ha Na/Lee So Hee (China), and Nami Matsuyama/Chiharu Shida (Japan).

China has a strong presence in the mixed doubles nominations, with Zheng/Huang, Asian champions Feng Yan Zhe/Huang Dong Ping, and Indonesia Open winners Jiang Zhen Bang/Wei Ya Xin contenders alongside Dejan Ferdinansyah/Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja.

BWF said that in addition to the five categories' awards, there are two additional player-voted awards: the Players’ Player of the Year (Men) and Players’ Player of the Year (Women), which replace the previous Most Improved award.

The top 32 ranked men’s and women’s singles players and the top 16 ranked men’s, women’s, and mixed doubles pairs as of October 8, 2024, were eligible to receive and vote for their peers.

The Eddy Choong Most Promising Player Award has been renamed the Eddy Choong Rising Star Award (for those aged 21 or below) and seeks to recognise the best emerging young talent exclusively. This is decided by the BWF Awards Commission, it said.

In Para badminton, Nitesh has been nominated alongside Paralympic champions Cheah Liek Hou, Daiki Kajiwara, and Qu Zimo for the Men’s Para-Badminton Player of the Year, while Li Feng Mei, Sarina Satomi, Liu Yu Tong and Leani Ratri Oktila are nominated in the women’s category.

Qu, Liu, Oktila and Li have a shot at a double, as they have also been nominated for the Para-Badminton Pair of the Year with respective partners Mai Jian Peng, Yin Meng Lu, Hikmat Ramdani and Lin Naili.

The winners are decided based on a combined score of the total world ranking points earned across the 52-week eligibility period, and votes tallied from a five-member expert panel after every HSBC BWF World Tour Super 750 and Super 1000 tournament, plus the HSBC BWF World Tour Finals and the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, both of which hold double points.

A weighting system has been established whereby the total 52-week world ranking points represent a larger value of the total sum of awards points collected.