Indian badminton took a giant step in its development programme when it decided to join the Super Series circuit beginning 2011. Up to this point of time, India has only been organizing Grand Prix events with limited monies as prizes. Obviously with the Super Series offering substantial cash rewards, the Indian Open had not been a favoured drawcard among the elite players of the world. But this will be a thing of the past from next year when the Indian Open will be elevated to Super Series status with prize monies in excess of US200,000.

The decision to upgrade the Indian leg of the international circuit was confirmed at the recently concluded Annual General Meeting of Badminton World Federation in Kuala Lumpur. A delighted V.K Verma, President of the Badminton Association of India and a vice-president of BWF expressed that the Indian entry was timely and deserved. “Indian players have proved themselves in recent times with creditable performances across the globe. Apart from the very distinctive and significant position of Saina Nehwal in world ranking, India also produced two semi-finalists at the recently concluded World Junior Championships in Mexico.”  Indian entry to the elite division was at the expense of the Swiss Open.

The Super Series is a 12-tournament event designed to attract the top 32 players from around the world with a minimum of USD $200,000 prize money for each tournament. Hosted from January through to December each year the events are usually held in pairs in a similar region of the world.

The BWF introduced the Super Series format in 2007 to showcase badminton at a higher level of presentation and competitiveness, to increase television coverage for the sport and to increase the star quality and popularity of the top players in the world through increased television coverage.

Beginning next year, the Super Series will take on a two-tier format. Five among the 12 members will be elevated to Premier Super Series status. These will be the Danish, Indonesian, China and Korean Opens and the All England Championships. Each of these tournaments will offer a minimum total prize money of US350,000 for each event. And for the first time in the history of the sport, the first ever million dollar prize money for a single event will be offered at the Korean Open.

The lower rung format comprising France, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and a second tournament in China, will each offer prize monies totaling US200,000.

The introduction of the new format will increase substantially the total prize monies offered per season in the Super Series – from US3.3 million to US4.7 million.