Ace India shuttlers Kidambi Srikanth and Saina Nehwal’s chances of making it to this year’s Tokyo Olympics have become uncertain as the Indian contingent has withdrawn from the upcoming Malaysian Open on Thursday.
Notably, Malaysia has imposed a ban on travellers from India, which is witnessing a massive surge in Covid-19 cases during the second wave.
“The Indian badminton team will have to withdraw from the Malaysian Open, scheduled from May 25 to 30, owing to a temporary travel restriction imposed by the Malaysian Government on travellers from India,” said the Sports Authority of India (SAI) on Thursday.
Malaysia Open was the second last event that provided points for Olympic qualification, with the final qualifier tournament being the Singapore Open Super 500 tournament scheduled to be held from June 1 to 6.
“The tournament is one of the last events that contribute to Olympic qualification which ends on June 15. All top Indian singles and doubles players like PV Sindhu, Saina Nehwal, Kidambi Srikanth, Sai Praneeth, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, Chirag Shetty, Ashwini Ponnappa and Sikki Reddy were due to participate,” said SAI.
SAI also said that the Sports Ministry, through the Ministry of External Affairs, approached the Malaysian authorities requesting to permit the Indian team to participate. The latter, however, denied the request, thus leading to the pull-out.