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#2. Li Xuerui
The 2012 London Olympic gold medallist, and one of the top women's singles players in the sport, big goodbye in October 2019. The 2019 Korea Open was her last tournament and she had also reached the finals of the All England Badminton Championships.
Competing in the women's singles, the Chinese has lifted 27 individual titles which include two silver medals at the World Champions in 2013 and 2014. At the 2010 and 2012 Asian Championships, she won the gold medal in women's singles. She followed it with the 2014 Asian Games silver medal in singles, while also bagging a gold in the women's team event.
Li had taken a break after an injury in the year 2016. She had to withdraw from her bronze-medal match against Nozomi Okuhara at the 2016 Rio Olympics because of injury. After 600 days, Xuerui made her return to the professional circuit at the 2018 Lingshui China Masters and also went on to win it. However, she hadn't been that successful after her return. She failed to win a single tournament in 2019 before her retirement.
#1. Lee Chong Wei
Lee Chong Wei is probably one the legends of badminton in the men's singles category. The three-time Olympic silver medallist has dominated the sport for 19 years since his debut in 2000.
Lee has been a former world number one and holds the record of holding the number one ranking for 378 weeks. Out of those, he held the position for a straight 199 weeks. He has won a total of 69 titles in his career.
The Malaysian announced his retirement in June 2019 after failing to compete due to early-stage nose cancer diagnosed in 2018. He was not given a go-ahead by his doctors to participate in competitions, following which he decided to hang up his boots.
Lee had an extremely successful career with only low points being the three losses in the Olympic finals and then three at the World Championships. He has won five gold medals at the Commonwealth Games and two gold at the Asian Championships.
He had a big rivalry against China's Lin Dan, who had defeated him at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic finals. After Lee's retirement, Dan wrote that he will "head into battle alone, as he no longer has a companion anymore".
Lee is appointed as the chef de mission for Malaysia's preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
