England’s Lauren Smith will be the only shuttler to take her place in two disciplines at the very top table of the sport at the HSBC BWF World Tour Finals.
The global circuit’s showpiece, running from 1 to 5 December in Bali, Indonesia, is the toughest tournament to qualify for on the World Tour.
All Olympic gold medallists get an automatic ticket to the exclusive competition and are joined in the traditional five disciplines by the other seven world-leading pairings.
That means a place in the women’s doubles draw for Smith and Chloe Birch, ranked fifth in the BWF World Tour rankings.
The Olympians claimed victories at Super 750 level in the recently-concluded Indonesia Masters and the Super 1000 Indonesia Open, both held in Bali.
The eight pairings will be split into two groups of four and Birch and Smith, ranked 13th in the world, could face Indonesia’s Greysia Polii and Apriyani Rahayu or long-standing European rivals Gabriela and Stefani Stoeva.
Smith will be alone in competing in two disciplines this week, a World Tour ranking of four meaning she and Marcus Ellis qualified comfortably in the mixed doubles.
Ellis and Smith will hope to build on their run to the quarter-finals of the Indonesia Masters, claiming wins in straight games over Alfian Eko Prasetya and Masita Mahmudin and Young Hyuk Kim and Chae Yu Jung.
