A proposed internal tournament for Malaysian shuttlers is set to bear extra significance after the Badminton World Federation (BWF) called off four top-tier tournaments that were set to take place in September.
The Chinese Taipei Open, Korea Open, China Open and Japan Open were cancelled after the world body consulted the respective hosts.
For now, the Thomas & Uber Cup scheduled to take place in Aarhus, Denmark in October is still going ahead until further notice.
“The cancellation of these tournaments in September will certainly affect the players’ preparations because they will not have an international tournament before the Thomas & Uber Cup.
“As I mentioned earlier, we will now focus on organising more internal tournaments for our players so they can remain competitive,” national body secretary-general Kenny Goh told the New Straits Times.
Junior shuttlers, meanwhile, could prepare for the National Under-21 Championships and National Junior Circuit Grand Prix Finals in September and October respectively.
The BWF, in their statement, said: “We are deeply disappointed to have to cancel tournaments, but feel the well-being of everyone involved is most important at this time.”
With almost every country imposing a 14-day quarantine period upon arrival, it means the timeline for each tournament would be almost a month long.
There has not been any update on exemption for badminton events to take place yet, seeing that travel restrictions in many countries continue to be strict.
Besides badminton, other sporting events involving travel in Asia have also not begun and do not look likely to happen soon.
Nicolas Anil
Thu Jul 30 2020
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