NEW DELHI: The Badminton Association of India (BAI) has requested the Union Sports Ministry to relax the mandatory 14-day quarantine period for foreign players keen to participate in next year’s Yonex Sunrise India Open Super 500 tournament.
The tournament is scheduled to take place at the capital’s Indira Gandhi Stadium between March 30 to April 4, 2021. With the tournament also being a Tokyo Olympic Games qualifier event, Indian shuttlers, as well as the world’s top players, would be keen to participate.
BAI general secretary Ajay Singhania met Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju to chalk out a plan for conducting the $400,000 India Open event.
“I met the honourable Sports Minister today (Monday) and requested him to consider the current international practice of accepting a negative RT-PCR test report taken 72 hours before departure on arrival in the country instead of 14-day quarantine,” Singhania told PTI.
“Yonex Sunrise India Open will be a crucial Olympic qualifier tournament and players are very interested to come and play, especially as many shuttlers are yet to confirm their berths for the Olympics. I have explained the situation to the Sports Minister in detail and requested him to consider the current international practice of a mandatory 72-hour prior test and negative certification instead of 14-day quarantine,” Singhania told ANI.
Singhania said the Sports Minister has assured all help in organising the tournament.
“I submitted a written request and Kiren Rijiju ji has assured to resolve the issue at the earliest. Both BAI and the Sports Ministry are eager to see badminton make a resounding return to India with the Indian Open Superseries,” Singhania said.
The Denmark Open Super 750 is the only world tour event held this year since the global health crisis forced the world body to either cancel or postpone all tournaments after the All England Championships in March.
