BWF announces suspension of Badminton tournaments due to Coronavirus

The Badminton World Federation has decided to suspend all tournaments from March 16 to April 12 due to the coronavirus pandemic. (BWF) has postponed the WWF World Tour and all badminton-related tournaments until April 12 to avoid an outbreak of coronaviruses spreading around the world.

After this decision of the BWF, the India Open Badminton tournament to be held in New Delhi from March 24 to 29 has also been postponed. The BWF said that its decision will be applicable from Monday after the All England Open which ends on Sunday 15 March.

The apex body of badminton said that all the tournaments are being cancelled at the moment with the advice of all the members because there are many restrictions on the players’ travel. The association said that the federation cares about the health of all players, members and officials.

Due to this decision of BWF, next week’s Swiss Open, India Open, Orleans Masters, Malaysia Open and Singapore Open will not be held as per schedule. It is also to be noted that seven Indians shuttlers withdrew from the All England Open last week due to Coronavirus.

BWF’s move to continue holding badminton tournaments while many other sporting events were being cancelled due to the coronavirus was questioned a lot by the many shuttlers. Indian stars Saina Nehwal and P Kashyap were constantly raising their voice and urging BWF about stopping the tournaments as well as stopping the ranking for Olympic qualifying.

The cancellation or postponement of several badminton tournaments due to coronavirus has had its impact on the Tokyo Olympic qualifying period. The BWF said that it would take a decision later on Olympic qualification.

Due to the worldwide coronavirus, the five BWF badminton tournaments from February to March have already been canceled or postponed. These include the Polish Open, Vietnam International Challenge, Portugal International Championship, German Open and China Masters.

On the other hand, Indian badminton chief national coach, Pullela Gopi Chand, welcomed the BWF’s decision to suspend all tournaments from March 16 to April 12 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The national coach said, “It is a good decision and one cannot ignore the health risk of everyone involved including players, officials and spectators. When the whole world is witnessing so many restrictions, it was not the ideal scenario to go ahead with the BWF events.”