Goh Liu Ying: “I have just found out.”

On 27 August, Badminton World Federation (BWF) put out a notice for the New Tournament Calendar for the rest of 2020. In it, BWF announced the Thomas and Uber Cup, Denmark Open I, Denmark Masters 2020, Asia Open I, Asia Open II and the World Tour Finals.

Players qualifying for the World Tour Finals “must participate in both the European leg and Asian leg of the remaining HSBC BWF World Tour tournaments”, according to the new rule which is mentioned in the guidelines published on 27 August.

The final date for players to submit their entries for the Denmark Open I and Denmark Masters have passed (September 8). Players who missed out on this deadline have effectively missed out on playing at the World Tour Finals.

One such player is Olympic silver medalist Goh Liu Ying.

Through The Star, Goh expressed her disappointment and said the majority of the player would face the same predicament as her.

“I have just found out. There’s nothing we can do about it now. But I still feel that it’s not right for the BWF to require all players to commit to playing in all the remaining tournaments, considering the ongoing uncertainties,” said Goh.

Some important points from the BWF Notice.

All points accumulated in the “HSBC Race to Guangzhou Rankings” till March 15, 2020, will be counted towards the qualifying rankings for the world tour finals (new name – “HSBC Race to World Tour Finals Rankings”).

Points accumulated from Denmark Open I, Denmark Masters 2020, Asia Open I and Asia Open II will be used for the final qualification ranking.

It is a requirement that players qualifying for the World Tour Finals must participate in both the European leg and Asian leg of the remaining tournament calendar. “It will not be logistically possible to include players not playing in the two legs of tournaments due to safety and quarantine procedures”, BWF clarified.

BWF stated that they were not expecting the participants of the European and the Asian legs to return to their home countries after the European leg. BWF is set to provide the transport arrangements from Denmark to the Asian leg location directly without returning to the home bases to avoid quarantine procedures.

All participants must be tested for Covid-19 before leaving their home country and give a  negative test result when they reach the tournament venue. Covid-19 tests during the tournaments will be conducted by BWF.

All participants would be mandated to follow the guiding principles of the safety protocols strictly.