New Delhi: The Badminton World Federation (BWF) has canceled the India Open Super 500 and Hyderabad Open Super 100 tournaments due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The BWF has also announced a revised international calendar that they hope will salvage the season.
The USD 400,000 India Open, which was supposed to be one of the qualifiers for the Tokyo Olympics, was originally scheduled for May 11 to 16, but it was postponed in April because of rising COVID cases in the national capital.
The USD 1,00,000 Hyderabad Open was scheduled to take place between August 24 and 29. However, the Syed Modi India International Super 300 tournament, scheduled to take place in Lucknow from October 12 to 17, remains on course for now according to the new calendar.
On Monday, BWF announced that Finland will host the Sudirman Cup Finals in September-October, while Indonesia will stage the season-ending World Tour Finals.
China was meant to host the Sudirman Cup Final but the BWF decided to move both events due to COVID-19 restrictions.
The apex body also extended the Spanish World Championships by two weeks, scheduled to take place in December. ‘Covid-19 restrictions have meant it is not feasible to conduct tournaments in China this year. Therefore, alternative host cities have been identified for the TotalEnergies BWF Sudirman Cup Finals 2021 and the HSBC BWF World Tour Finals 2021,’ BWF said in a statement.
‘Vantaa, Finland is the new host of the TotalEnergies BWF Sudirman Cup Finals 2021 in Week 39 (26 September – 3 October 2021).’
Aarhus in Denmark will host the Thomas & Uber Cup Finals 2020 (October 9-17), which were postponed last year.
There will be back-to-back World Tour events, the DANISA Denmark Open in Odense (October 19-24), the YONEX French Open in Paris (October 26-31), and the SaarLorLux Open in Saarbrücken, Germany (November 2-7). After this, the governing body will create a bio-bubble in Indonesia, similar to Thailand, in order to host a three-tournament Asian Leg in Bali, including the World Tour Final.
The Indonesia Masters and Indonesia Open will be held from November 16-21 and November 23-28, respectively, followed by the World Tour Finals from December 1-5.
‘The final tournament of the calendar year will be the TotalEnergies BWF World Championships in Huelva, Spain in Week 50 (12-19 December 2021),’ the world body said.
Post Your Comments