Viktor Axelsen withdraws from BWF Canada Open 2023

The men's singles World No. 1 recently won the European Games title.

Denmark and world's top-ranked singles player Viktor Axelsen has withdrawn from the upcoming Canada Open 2023, BWF (Badminton World Federation) 500 tournament. The players confirmed about his withdrawal in his social media platform and said, "I will unfortunately not to be going to Calgary for Canada Open as originally planned. I’ve pushed my body over the last 4 weeks in order to get ready and perform at Indonesia Open and European Games and my body tells me that recovery followed be high quality training is what is needed over the next few weeks."

Viktor got injured at the Sudirman Cup in May and had to take three to four weeks off for his rehab. He came back strongly to retain his Indonesian Open (BWF 1000) title. After a week's break, he also participated in the European Games and defeated Christo Popov of France to win the Continental Games.

With this win Axelsen becomes the second singles player after Lin Dan to hold the Olympic Games, World Championships, Continental Games and Continental Championship titles simultaneously. He is also the seventh shuttler in the history of the sport to hold this remarkable quartet of titles all at the same time.

He initially entered the Canada Open 2023 as the top seed and with his withdrawal a day prior to the tournament, Thailand's Kunlavut Vitidsarn will take over the top seed.

Performance so far in 2023

Viktor Axelsen has so far won two BWF tournaments so far this season. He started the season by winning the Malaysia Masters title and then finished second at the Indian Open in the succeeding week. He joined back into the BWF circuit for the European leg and had a decent outing losing the in the pre-quarterfinals and semi-finals of All England and Swiss Open respectively.