BWF World Tour Finals – Kidambi Srikanth and PV Sindhu qualifies: India’s leading shuttlers K.Srikant and PV Sindhu has qualified for the BWF World Tour Finals scheduled to be held in Bangkok from January 27 to 31. Though Sindhu made the cut without any fuss, Srikanth was lucky to qualify after all the Chinese and Japanese shuttlers pulled out of these three events due to fears over the novel coronavirus.
In men’s singles, Srikanth is ranked seven in Tour rankings while his world ranking is No.14. The draw for the Finals will be held on Tuesday.
BWF World Tour Finals: Doubles Team of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty fails to qualify
Despite reaching the semifinals, the men’s doubles team of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty and mixed doubles pair of Satwik and Ashwini Ponnappa failed to make it to the Finals.
Only the top eight players and teams in the Tour rankings will make it to the year-end event. The Finals were originally scheduled to be held in China in December but due to the pandemic the event was postponed to January.
BWF World Tour Finals: Srikanth resumes training after BAI gets mandatory quarantine period reduced
Srikanth withdrew from the tournament after B Sai Praneeth, who he was sharing a room with, had tested positive for COVID-19.
Srikanth had tested negative in the mandatory PCR test conducted on Monday and had also returned negative results since arriving in Thailand.
“Update on @srikidambi #BAI has ensured @srikidambi’s mandatory quarantine of 14 days is reduced to a week and the former No 1 has resumed training starting today. The entire team is also scheduled for a compulsory COVID19 test tomorrow as per @bwfmedia protocol,” BAI tweeted.
Srikanth and reigning world champion P V Sindhu have qualified for the World Tour Finals, scheduled to begin here from Wednesday. The duo and the support staff will undergo a compulsory COVID-19 test on Monday.
The other Indian shuttlers who participated in the singles events of the Super 1000 tournament have already left Thailand while the doubles players will fly out on Monday.
The 27-year-old Srikanth had defeated Thailand’s Sitthikom Thammasin 21-11 21-11 in the first round on Tuesday before withdrawing from the tournament.
The world number 14 had withdrawn from last week’s event ahead of his second round after pulling a calf muscle.
“I had to pull out of the BWF Thailand Open to stay in line with BWF health and safety protocols, after my roommate tested +ve. I have however tested negative and I look forward to finishing my quarantine,” Srikanth had tweeted.
Last week, Saina Nehwal and HS Prannoy had returned positive for COVID-19 results initially but were later cleared to compete in the Yonex Thailand Open after they tested negative in a fresh round of testing.