August 27, 2020
(Reuters) – The Badminton World Federation (BWF) on Thursday announced a revised tournament calendar with the World Tour set to return with back-to-back Super 750 events in Odense, Denmark beginning on Oct. 13.
The two-week European leg will be followed by two Super 1000 tournaments in Asia and the prestigious World Tour Finals. The locations of the three Asian tournaments are yet to be announced.
The BWF also confirmed that the Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Aarhus, Denmark will take place as scheduled from Oct. 3-11.
“Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was not possible to implement the revised international tournament calendar for the HSBC BWF World Tour as originally envisaged,” BWF Secretary General Thomas Lund said.
“Managing travel logistics between different territories where different entry and safety restrictions apply has been the biggest challenge. Therefore, an adjusted tournament calendar was developed.
“We look forward to the return of international badminton and we thank all parties and participants involved in the planning process.”
All the remaining World Tour events will no longer take place on the dates and locations originally listed, the BWF added.
The badminton season was suspended due to the novel coronavirus pandemic following the All England Open in March.
(Reporting by Arvind Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Ken Ferris)
