The year-ending showpiece attracts the top eight ranked players from all five competing categories - men's and women's singles and doubles, and mixed doubles – as they battle for the a share of the $1 million (£640,000/€810,000) prize pot.

Just four days ahead of the deadline, all but one of the eligible qualifiers confirmed their attendance at the event, due to take place in Dubai from December 17 to 21.

China's Li Xuerui, the two-time World Superseries Finals defending women's singles champion, is the only competitor who will not be making the journey after being ruled out due to injury.

Her place will be taken by world number three Wang Yihan, who would have qualified regardless had her two team mates, Li and Wang Shixian, not occupied the top two spots in the BWF Destination Dubai Rankings.

Under BWF rules, only two athletes per National Federation can qualify for each category.

Li Xuerui will miss the opportunity to win her third straight title at the Superseries Finals after an injury forced her out of the tournament ©Getty Images



Despite Li's absence, Wang and Wang look likely to retain China's hold on the women's singles title but will face stiff opposition from India's China Open champion Saina Nehwal, Chinese Taipei's Hong Kong Open champion Tai Tzu Ying and South Korea's Sung Ji Hyun.

Other than Li, the Finals, now in its seventh year, has attracted the season's best talent, as all top-eight qualifiers in every division have indicated their attendance well ahead of this Friday's cut-off date.

China will again lead the charge in the men's singles with world champion Chen Long the man to beat.

His biggest challenger, Malaysia's defending champion Lee Chong Wei, will not be making the trip to Dubai following his provisional suspension due to an alleged doping offence.

Instead, Denmark's Indonesia Open champion Jan O Jorgensen, India's China Open champion Kidambi Srikanth and South Korea's Hong Kong Open champion Son Wan Ho will be hoping to give Chen a run for his money.

Double Olympic champion Lin Dan of China failed to break into the top eight of the World Superseries Finals rankings so will miss the tournament ©Getty Images



Olympic and Asian Games champion Lin Dan also misses out after failing to break the top eight in the Superseries standings.

As was the case for Chinese Taipei's French Open champion Chou Tien Chen despite a spirited comeback after his failures earlier in the year.

While the men's doubles will see the eight top-ranked pairs vying for the title, three stellar Chinese partnerships were denied the opportunity in the women's doubles.

Bao Yixin/Tang Jinhua, Ma Jin/Tang Yuanting and three-time Finals champions Yu Yang/Wang Xiaoli were within the top eight of the rankings but finished behind their compatriots Tian Qing/Zhao Yunlei and Luo Ying/Luo Yu.

Mixed Doubles has a mix of countries with only China fielding two pairs.

Defending champions Joachim Fischer Nielsen/Christinna Pedersen qualified in seventh place, ahead of Germany's Michael Fuchs/Birgit Michels in tenth position.

The German's qualified due to Liu Cheng/Bao Yixin and Kai Lu/Yaqiong Huang, who finished in eighth and ninth, not being eligible under the two teams per federation rule.

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