The All England Open Badminton Championships is the world’s oldest badminton tournament. It was the first ever open tournament that began in 1898. However, the official inaugural edition was in 1899, when London’s Horticultural Halls hosted the event. Since 1994, the tournament has been held in Arena Birmingham. Historically, it is the eighth venue where the tournament is contested.
The tournament is one of the four Super 1000 events on the Badminton World Federation Tour. The tournament features competitions played in the men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles events. Each event is played in a knockout draw format. A single draw consists of 32 players or pairs.
The winner of each event receives 12,000 ranking points. The runner-up and the semifinalist get 10,200 and 8400 ranking points each. The tournament has a massive prize pool of USD $13,00,000 as of 2024. The singles champions get $91,000 whereas the doubles champions recieve $96,200.
Rudy Hartono is the most successful men’s singles player, having won eight titles. George Alan Thomas is the best men’s doubles player at the tournament with nine titles to his name. Judy Devlin and Meriel Lucas have won a record ten titles each in the women’s singles and women’s doubles categories respectively. The record for the most mixed doubles titles won by a male player is a tied record between Finn Kobber and George Alan Thomas who have won eight titles each. The female leader in this category is Betty Uber, who has been a part of eight mixed doubles winning pairs at the All England Open.
Host nation England has produced the maximum winners as of 2024. A total of 194 English players have been champions across all disciplines at the tournament. The next best nations are Denmark and China, whose players have won 89 and 87 titles respectively.
