English contingent withdraws from India Open 2022 after two test positive

The Badminton Association of India confirmed that the tournament will go ahead as planned.

The rise of COVID-19 cases and withdrawal of teams from different nations seem to affect the India Open in the 2022 edition as well. The Super 500 tournament of the BWF World Tour was cancelled for two consecutive times before this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Friday, the entire English contingent withdrew from the tournament after their men’s doubles pair of Ben Lane and Sean Vendy tested positive for COVID-19 along with their coach. Badminton Association of India (BAI) took to Twitter to share updates of the players who had arrived for the tournament this year. On Sunday, they announced that the entire English contingent had withdrawn from the tournament two days back.

While doing so, the BAI also shared the tweet of Ben Lane, who had mentioned that he had tested positive along with his partner and coach, thus he will not be participating at the tournament.

BAI, however, made it clear that the rest of the players who arrived at a hotel were tested negative and the India Open 2022 would go on as planned.

The withdrawal of the English participants doesn’t mean ease of passage for any player. With the likes of Loh Kean Yew and Tommy Sugiarto in men’s singles and the former world No.1 Ahsan and Setiawan in doubles, the competition will pose its fair share of challenges.

Similarly in women’s singles and doubles, the challenge will be led by the Olympics bronze medallist and former winner at this tournament, PV Sindhu of India, along with world No. 9 Kititharakul and Prajongjai of Thailand respectively. The tournament will begin on January 11, 2022 in New Delhi.

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