In February 2022, the VICTOR Oceania Men’s and Women’s Team Championships were meant to take place in North Harbour, New Zealand, alongside the Open Individual Championships, Junior Individual and Mixed Team tournament.
While the (Open) Individual tournament was able to be postponed and has moved to Melbourne (Australia) between 28 April – 1 May, the team competitions were unfortunately cancelled due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.
Originally, the winner of the Oceania Men’s and Women’s Team Championships would go on to compete at the respective Men’s and Women’s World Team Championships Finals – the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup.
However, in the result of cancellation, Oceania’s continental qualification spot is determined by the highest number of accumulated world ranking points across the nation’s top singles players and doubles pairs.
For the Thomas Cup, New Zealand prevailed and have accepted their spot to compete in the Thomas Cup in Bangkok, Thailand from 8 – 15 May 2022.
It will have been six years since New Zealand last made an appearance at the Thomas Cup Finals as Australia competed in the 2018 edition; Tahiti in 2021 (rescheduled from 2020).
The New Zealand Men’s team named to compete at the Thomas Cup include:
- Adam Jeffrey
- Dylan Soedjasa
- Edward Lau (reigning Oceania Junior men’s singles champion)
- Joshua Feng
- Oliver Leydon-Davis (reigning Oceania men’s doubles champion)
- Ricky Cheng
- Ryan Tong (reigning Oceania Junior men’s doubles champion)
National Coach, Rikke Olsen Siegemund, will accompany the team to the tournament.
The players will be fresh from international competition as they compete in the postponed VICTOR Oceania Championships 2022 (Open Individual) ten days prior to their Thomas Cup campaign.
Alternatively, Australia have qualified for and accepted their position for the TotalEnergies BWF Uber Cup Finals 2022, with their team yet to be named.
