Notional ranking is a system used by the Badminton World Federation. It is used in doubles to calculate the ranking of a newly formed doubles pair.
In badminton, players or teams get into the qualifying and main draw of a tournament based on their ranking. The number of players that can get into this draw depends on the tier of the tournament as categorised by the BWF.
Notional ranking system can be applied only in those cases when at least one player from the new pair has played with different partners. They must have played in BWF sanctioned events that provide world rankings to players or pairs. The notional ranking system prerequisite prediction is that the stronger player is likely to influence the pair’s performance in the near future which will definitely position them higher in the world rankings as they progress.
The notional ranking system takes into consideration the strength of the newly formed pair that has played. Based on the notional ranking calculation, the team can get the appropriate seed or position in the main or qualifying lists.
According to the notional ranking calculation, the maximum points won by a player and his/her new partner with their respective previous partners is summed up. The number of points won is divided by the total tournaments played for each player and added. The result is divided by 2, followed by a multiplication with 3. The 80% of this sum is the notional ranking of the new pair.
For a newly formed pair that has played in less than four tournaments, the adjusted ranking system is prefered over the notional ranking system.
