Saina Nehwal & Parupalli Kashyap Pull Out of the Denmark Open

Ace Indian shuttlers – Saina Nehwal & Parupalli Kashyap have decided against traveling to Denmark for the Denmark Open Super 750 in Odense, expected to start on the 13th of October 2020, leaving Kidambi Srikanth, Lakshya Sen, Ajay Jayaram and Subhankar Dey as the only Indian representatives at the comeback event of the BWF Calendar.

The decorated Indian duo felt that traveling in the midst of the corona virus pandemic, just for a one-off tournament wasn’t quite worth the risk and decided to give the tournament a miss. Three tournaments would have made more sense, but just for one tournament it was too much of a hassle said Saina.

"I withdrew from Denmark Open. I decided that I will start the season from January only with the Asian tour," the 2012 Olympic Bronze Medallist was quoted as saying.

Parupalli Kashyap also echoed similar sentiments, “I too feel it is not worth the risk to go all the way for one tournament. It is better to start the season afresh participating in the Asia leg from January,”

Although both Saina & Kashyap had sent in their entries for the tournament and completed the pre-tournament formalities, they always maintained that they will be taking a call as they get closer to the tournament dates.

Earlier in the week, the entire Japanese contingent of 15 players also decided to give the event a miss. This includes world number #1 Kento Momota and women’s world #4 Nozomi Okuhara.

The Denmark Open Super 750 was originally one of the three events scheduled for the month of October, earmarked as the comeback events for topflight badminton action. But the world body was forced to cancel the Thomas & Uber Cup as well as the Denmark Masters amidst the corona virus scare. Also, the Asian leg of the tour was pushed back from December to January leaving the Denmark Open as the only tournament before the end of the year.