Indian badminton ace PV Sindhu had been in quarantine till today because of her participation in the All England Championships last month and hasn’t been on court since her 21-12, 15-21, 13-21 defeat to Nozomi Okuhara in the quarter-finals.
For India’s top-ranked player such a long period away from the court is a rarity.
“Even when I was off for five months in 2015 due to injury I used to go to the court regularly. This is the first time I’ve not seen the court for over three weeks,” PV Sindhu told The Times of India.
The Hyderabad shuttler’s 14-day quarantine period was to end on March 28 but authorities advised her to continue till April 5.
“The local police are monitoring us. A couple of days before my quarantine was to end, they extended it to April 5. They took our passports and pasted a sticker on our door. I enquired with my friends who returned from England and it’s the same routine for all of us,” she said.
BWF set to reschedule 2021 Worlds
The Badminton World Federation is working on alternative dates for the 2021 World Championships that will now have to be rescheduled as its dates clash with the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
The competition that is being held annually except for the Olympic year since 2006 was to be held in the Spanish city of Huelva.
“The BWF is aware of the need to reschedule the World Championships 2021 normally staged in August with suitable alternatives being discussed with hosts Spain,” the BWF said in a statement.
The postponement of the Olympic Games has disrupted sporting calendars of a few other sports. World Athletics has already confirmed it will push back its World Championships to 2022, while the World Aquatics Championships could also be delayed a year.