COVID-19: BWF freezes world rankings till further notice, standings backdated to Mar 17

BWF said that standings as on March 17 will be the basis for entry and seedings when it restarts the international calender.

"The Badminton World Federation (BWF) can announce it will freeze World Rankings and World Junior Rankings until further notice. The freezing of rankings will be backdated to Week 12, which is the week following the last international tournament that was played the YONEX All England Open 2020," BWF said in a statement.

"The ranking lists issued on March 17, 2020 will serve as a basis for entry and seeding into the next international tournaments although it is difficult to say at this stage when this may be," it added.

Earlier, there were growing calls for freezing the World rankings with Indian shuttlers Saina Nehwal, B Sai Praneeth, Parupalli Kashyap and H S Prannoy expressing their concern.

Shuttlers in the singles competition have to be on top-16 of World rankings, to qualify for the Olympics. The cut-off for the doubles is top-8.

The BWF had suspended all tournaments post the All England Championships until April 12 due to the pandemic.

These tournaments include big-ticket events like BWF India Open (Super 500), Malaysia Open (Super 750) and the Singapore Open (Super 500), apart from the three Continental Confederation championships.
BWF said due to the present scenario the next tournaments will also be suspended.

"Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the badminton community has experienced an unprecedented suspension to international tournaments from mid-march 2020 to the end of April 2020.

"At present, it is difficult to predict when the next international tournament will take place with further tournaments also expected to be suspended in May and June,'' BWF said.