BadmintonBitesblog

What Shuttles are Used in Professional Badminton Tournaments?

by BadmintonBites
BadmintonShuttlecock

Ever wonder what shuttles professional badminton players play with? There are so many out there (just take a look of this list of over 300 shuttles!), so which ones are actually used in competitive play? There’s a list of BWF-approved shuttlecocks, but that doesn’t mean they’re actually used, and some shuttles are more popular than others. So what exactly is being used?

Well, I compiled all of the shuttles that the professional badminton tournaments that are part of the BWF World Tour (the big tournaments that are numbered “Super 100 to 1000” and also the World Tour Finals).

All of the data comes from 2023. Currently, many tournaments that are later in the year do not state what shuttles they will be using yet, but I collected the data of what is known so far. I’ll update this in the future once the data is available.

Here’s the summarized data so far:

ShuttleNumber of tournaments
Yonex Aerosensa 5013
Yonex Tournament Grade (F-90)2
Victor Master Ace2
Li-Ning G8001
Li-Ning G9001

As you can see, the shuttles used in the biggest badminton tournaments below to the three biggest badminton brands in the world - Yonex, Victor, and Li-Ning!

The vast majority of professional badminton tournaments use Yonex Aerosensa 50 (AS-50) shuttles! Not a big surprise here as they are really high quality as I noted in my full review.

The Yonex Tournament Grade shuttles, also known as the F-90, are supposed to be an even higher grade than the Yonex Aerosensa 50 and are quite difficult to find outside of Japan. I personally never got my hands on a tube of them but I have played with them before. The sticker on the shuttle simply says “Tournament” on it with the classic Yonex blue and green. In any case, they tend to be really expensive but are supposed to be of the highest quality!

Next, 2 more tournaments use Victor Master Ace, the highest quality shuttle made by Victor. I haven’t played too much with these shuttles before, but they are quite good. I remember them feeling less dense than the Yonex Aerosensa 50 but it flew well.

Lastly, 2 tournaments use the top 2 Li-Ning shuttles - G900 (previously called A+ 600) and G800 (previously called A+ 300). I haven’t played with Li-Ning shuttles much so can’t give much of an opinion about these shuttles.

Here is all the data on a per tournament basis that was taken from BWF’s tournament website:

TournamentCategoryShuttle
Petronas Malaysia OpenSuper 1000Yonex Aerosensa 50
Yonex Sunrise India OpenSuper 750Yonex Aerosensa 50
Daihatsu Indonesia Masters 2023Super 500Yonex Aerosensa 50
Princess Sirivannavari Thailand Masters 2023Super 300Yonex Aerosensa 50
Yonex German OpenSuper 300Yonex Aerosensa 50
Yonex All England OpenSuper 1000Yonex Tournament Grade (F-90)
Ruichang China MastersSuper 100Li-Ning G800
Yonex Swiss OpenSuper 300Yonex Aerosensa 50
Madrid Spain MastersSuper 300No data
Orléans Masters Badminton 2023 presented by VictorSuper 300Victor Master Ace
Perodua Malaysia Masters 2023 presented by DaihatsuSuper 500Yonex Aerosensa 50
Toyota Gazoo Racing Thailand OpenSuper 500Yonex Aerosensa 50
KFF Singapore OpenSuper 750Li-Ning G900
Kapal Api Group Indonesia OpenSuper 1000Yonex Aerosensa 50
Yonex Taipei OpenSuper 300Yonex Aerosensa 50
Yonex Canada OpenSuper 500Yonex Aerosensa 50
Yonex US OpenSuper 300Yonex Aerosensa 50
Daihatsu Japan OpenSuper 750Yonex Tournament Grade (F-90)
Sathio GROUP Australian Open 2023Super 500Victor Master Ace
New Zealand OpenSuper 300No data for 2023 (cancelled), but previously have used Yonex Aerosensa 50
China OpenSuper 1000No data
BNI Indonesia Masters ISuper 100No data
Vietnam OpenSuper 100No data
Kaohsiung OpenSuper 100No data
Clash of Clans Arctic Open 2023 powered by YONEXSuper 500Yonex Aerosensa 50
Abu Dabi MastersSuper 100No data
Yonex French OpenSuper 750No data
BNI Indonesia Masters IISuper 100No data
Hylo OpenSuper 300No data
Korea MastersSuper 300No data
In 2022, they used Yonex Aerosensa 50
Kumamoto Masters JapanSuper 500No data
China MastersSuper 750No data
Syed Modi India InternationalSuper 300No data
India Super 100 ISuper 100No data
India Super 100 IISuper 100No data
HSBC World Tour FinalsWorld Tour FinalsNo data
In 2022, it simply said "Li-Ning" as the shuttle. So presumably the highest Li-Ning shuttle available.