Coronavirus outbreak: Indian shuttlers push BWF to freeze rankings
The Indian badminton contingent has urged Badminton World Federation to halt the rankings amid the coronavirus pandemic. Earlier, the BWF had suspended all World Tour events after the completion of All England Championships in order to contain the spread of COVID-19. Following the postponement of Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the players believe BWF should immediately freeze the rankings. Here is more.
"If they keep slashing the points for all the qualifiers which were postponed, I don't know what will happen. BWF should freeze the rankings, later they can decide about the qualification depending on the dates of Olympics. There is no clarity," B. Sai Praneeth said.
Praneeth, who was set to represent India in the impending Olympic Games, stated that he will have to compete again for qualification. "If Olympics would have happened in July, I would have been sure about my qualification," he said. He added, "Since it's now a year away, the qualification process will again be on and I will have to fight for ranking points."
Apart from Praneeth, Parupalli Kashyap, PV Sindhu and doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy had sealed their Olympics berth. Sindhu's father PV Ramana feels BWF should freeze the rankings until next year. "The only feasible way for BWF is to freeze the rankings till this year's All England and carry on with the rest of the calendar whenever things improve," he said.
The BWF earlier decided to suspend the India Open at least till April 12 due to the coronavirus outburst. It was scheduled from March 24 to 29. "Tournaments affected include the YONEX Swiss Open 2020, YONEX-SUNRISE India Open 2020, Orleans Masters 2020, CELCOM Axiata Malaysia Open 2020, and Singapore Open 2020, as well as a number of international Grade 3 tournaments," the BWF said.
