A professional badminton tournament features a pool of players who are placed in a knockout draw. The size of the draw depends on the tier of the tournament assigned by the Badminton World Federation (BWF).
In professional badminton, the number of entries sent by a player or a player’s team management has to be ordered in line with their ranking. The total number of entries are organized in a report called the M & Q report. The M stands for main draw and the Q stands for qualifying draw. Based on the draw size, the higher ranked players directly qualify for the main draw. A certain spots are kept vacant in the main draw. These slots are occupied by the best players from the qualifying draw.
The qualifying draw is also made based on a seeding system, such that the higher seeds are placed on opposite halves. The entries whose rank is not enough to make it to the qualifying draw too are either deemed illegible or a portion of the players who have a relatively higher ranked are kept as ‘reserves’.
Players in the reserve list feature in the bottom of the table of M&Q report’s list of players. If there is a withdrawal from the qualifying draw, the highest ranked player in the reserve list who has confirmed their participation in the tournament are given preference. They make it to the qualifying draw and the abbreviation PFR is tagged alongside their name. The PFR stands for Promoted from Reserves.
Thus, players from the reserve list also get a chance to improve their ranking or rating.
