Sydney International 2019: A window of opportunity for Louisa Ma to take the Oceania Tour title

Window of opportunity for Louisa Ma to take the Oceania Tour title

The Oceania Tour was a new concept for 2019, encouraging the region’s players to compete in local tournaments. The World Ranking points accrued in these eligible events are totalled to find an overall winner in each discipline, with the winners will receive prize money to put towards international training and competition.

The included tournaments that have taken place so far include:

• VICTOR Oceania Individual Championships
• YONEX North Harbour International
• YONEX Waikato International
• Barfoot & Thompson New Zealand Open
• CROWN Group Australian Open
• Perth International
• South Australia International

The Sydney International is the eight and last eligible tournament, meaning that the overall standings are coming to an end and some winners have already been realised.

In the Mixed and Women’s Doubles, Australia’s Gronya Somerville has outshined the classifications, clinging on to the top spot since the first tournament with partners Setyana Mapasa and Simon Leung.

Meanwhile, the Men’s and Women’s Singles competition begins to develop, with everything still to play for.

In the first round of the Women’s Singles at the Sydney International, fourth seed and current leader in the Oceania Tour, Hsuan-Yu Wendy Chen, suffered a first round exit. New Zealand’s Sally Fu is currently in second place, but is not competing in Sydney and therefore, will not be able to overtake Chen.

• Eoon Qi Xuan (MAS) vs Hsuan-Yu Wendy CHEN (AUS)[4]  21-16 21-10

However, Australia’s Louisa Ma is lunging out from the shadows in third place, following her first-round win in Sydney this morning.

• Louisa Ma (AUS)[6] vs Airah Mae Nicole Albo (PHI) 21-19 21-16

With 850 points separating Wendy and Louisa, and a potential of 2500 World Ranking points up for grabs for the winner, the prize money and Oceania Tour title is still within the grasp of Ma.

Check the BWF World Ranking document out for more details.

Follow all of the player’s progress at the Sydney International 2019 on Tournament Software.