Malaysia’s  Goh V Shem and Tan Wee Kiong will not be playing the Yonex German Open 2020 (Mar 3 – Mar 8) and the Yonex All England Championships 2020 (Mar 11 – Mar 15).

According to the Star, they failed to submit their entries before the tournament entry deadlines of the two tournaments. The deadline was last Tuesday, 28 January 2020.

The Rio Olympics silver medalists will miss out on earning valuable ranking points for Tokyo because of the silly mistake.

Just participating at a Super 1000 event like the All England gives 3000 valuable rankings points to a player.

Olympic hopes good as gone?

Goh and Tan are currently ranked at no. 12 in the Olympic qualification rankings.

They are in close competition with compatriots Aaron Chia/ Soh Wooi Yik (ranked 10) and Ong Yew Sin/ Teo Ee Yi (Ranked 13) to qualify for the Olympics.

Only Aaron Chia/ Soh Wooi Yik are qualified for the Olympics at the moment.

By failing to play in the two tournaments, Goh and Tan will drop down in the rankings and become the third ranked pair from Malaysia.

A country can send two pairs (doubles players) to the Olympics if both of them are ranked in the top 8 of the qualification rankings. Else it can send only one pair.

Only a few tournaments are left in the qualification period after the All England. It will take nothing less than a miracle for the pair to earn a ticket to Tokyo.

BAM helped, but to no avail.

Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) reportedly wrote multiple emails to the Badminton World Federation (BWF) to help the two players get into the two tournaments after they missed the entry deadline.

BWF rejected the plea and said they did not entertain any late submissions.