China's Fu Haifeng and Zhang Nan were the reigning gold medalists from 2016, but Fu retired from international badminton in 2017 and Zhang chose not to participate in the event.[4]
Background
This was the 8th appearance of the event as a full medal event. Badminton was introduced as a demonstration sport in 1972, held again as an exhibition sport in 1988, and added to the full programme in 1992; the men's doubles tournament has been held since.[5]
The badminton qualification system provided for 16 men's doubles teams (32 players). Following revisions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the qualifying periods were set from 29 April 2019 to 15 March 2020 and from 4 January to 13 June 2021, with the ranking list of 15 June 2021 deciding qualification.
Qualification was done entirely through the ranking list. Nations with at least two pairs in the top 8 were able to send a maximum of 2 pairs (4 players); all other nations were limited to a single pair. Pairs were taken from the ranking list in order, respecting those national limits, until 16 pairs were selected. However, each continent was guaranteed to have at least one pair with the lowest-ranking pairs displaced if necessary to make room for a continental guarantee.
Competition format
The tournament was started with a group phase round-robin. There were four groups of four teams each; the top two highest-ranked pairs from each group advanced to the knockout stage.[6] The knockout stage was a three-round single-elimination tournament with a bronze medal match.[7]
Matches were played best-of-three games. Each game was played to 21, except that a pair must win by 2 unless the score reached 30–29.[7]
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