Juniors
Junior badminton is South Africa is hosted across all the provinces/districts in the country. It is a vibrant community with inter-provincial, national and regional tournaments taking place across the country from under 9 level to under 19’s. Each year, the junior events calendar concludes with the South African Junior International in December.
Players have the opportunity to reach for the sky in their badminton careers with opportunities opening at under 15 level and under 19 levels to take part in the All Africa Championships which alternate each year together with the All Africa High Schools tournament which is held annually.
An updated national Grand Prix point system was introduced for the junior players from 2026. This will comprise of a consolidated national Grand Prix system across U15, U17 and U19 age groups. Many players participate in tournaments across different age groups, which often results in some discrepancies in rankings, which then can affect their seeding. This new Grand Prix points system will help to eradicate some of the issues which have arisen in the past and, hopefully, should also work to encourage junior players to play more senior opens in the future.
The following tournaments will qualify for Grand Prix points:
– Senior tournament – the player’s best result from any senior tournament (Open Series or SA Seniors).
– The player’s relevant age-related SA national tournament result.
– The player’s 4 best junior tournament results. This could be a tournament from any age group (U15, U 17 or U19) and may also include a SA national tournament that is not the player’s age related SA Nationals.
There is, however, no Grand Prix point allocation for Under 13 Opens as players only participate in
regional tournaments. Seeding for the Individuals at the u13 SA Championships is based on inter provincial results and grading are based on all results at the SA Championships.
