Asian WGP events back on track 10/06/2003 : The International Badminton Federation (IBF) is pleased to announce the rescheduling of the Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia Open World Grand Prix events. The three South-East Asian tournaments, due to have been held in late June/early July, were postponed last month because of the continuing nervousness of players and officials to travel and mingle with others from SARS-affected areas. Following the downward trend of SARS cases and the rescheduling of the QI IBF World Championships (28 July – 3 August), organisers of the Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia Opens have followed suit and have agreed the following new dates for their events with IBF: · 5* Singapore Open (US$170,000): week ending 24 August · 5* Indonesia Open (US$170,000): week ending 31 August · 4* Malaysia Open (US$120,000): week ending 7 September These tournaments comprise a key part of the international badminton calendar, and contribute significant world ranking points, particularly during the year-long Olympic Qualification Period which began on 1 May.
Kwun, Thanks for the good news. Great to see that the tournaments are being rescheduled and that things are gradually getting back to normal. However, aren't they a bit close together? These are quite big events and the fact they are fairly close, wont the players be a little tired from this? Matt
Also, the Dutch, Danish, and German Opens are all going to be held in succession less than 2 weeks after the end of Malaysian Open. That's a possbile 6 major events to participate at in just over a month!
IBF has no choice but to put all these tournaments close together because of the Olympic qualifying time. It was a pity that the 1st tournament to be played is the WC. Otherwise the players could have had some time to wind down and peak again. We may not see some of the very good matches that have happened in past WC. Hope I am wrong though!!
HK Open Just a couple of sentences. HK goverment is doing a promotion to show people HK as a place is now safe from SARS (I think it s safe now as well). Anyway, the upshot is that certain sporting events get extra sponsorship. Badminton and the HK Open is up for consideration as well so we may see this years HK Open being upgraded in its grand prix status. (prev 1 star for the last few years)
