Ace India shuttlers Kidambi Srikanth and Saina Nehwal’s last hopes of qualifying for the upcoming Tokyo Games shattered on Friday after the Badminton World Federation (BWF), the game’s governing body, said that there will not be any change in the current ranking list and no further tournament will be held inside the qualification period.
Significantly, former World No. 1 Srikanth and London Games bronze-medallist Saina’s hopes were all but dashed when the last of the Olympic qualifiers in Singapore was cancelled due to the Covid pandemic.
Both the shuttlers had a slim hope when the governing body had said that it “will issue a further statement on Tokyo Olympics qualifying at a later date”.
“The Badminton World Federation (BWF) can confirm no further tournaments will be played inside the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games qualifying window,” the BWF said in a statement.
“As such, while the qualification period officially closes 15 June 2021 as per the Revised Tokyo 2020 Qualification System, the current Race To Tokyo rankings list will not change,” it added.
Earlier due to the pandemic, the BWF was forced to cancel or postpone the last three qualifiers — India Open, Malaysia Open and Singapore Open. The move had left Srikanth and Saina with no chance to earn a qualification.
On the other hand, PV Sindhu, B Sai Praneeth and the men’s doubles pairing of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy have already made the cut for the Olympics.