Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, December 22, 2020: The Badminton World Federation has completed a review process of the BWF Tournament Calendar for 2021 as well as procedures for reopening the BWF World Rankings and vital information related to qualification and seedings for Tokyo 2020.
BWF can also announce a COVID-19 Support Package for tournament hosts that provides financial assistance and details cost-relieving initiatives to ensure tournaments can continue to be part of the HSBC BWF World Tour and BWF Tour in 2021.
The new-look BWF Tournament Calendar 2021 sees a number of tournaments postponed from Q1 and Q2, and a handful of Grade 2 tournaments cancelled.
BWF Secretary General Thomas Lund said: “The focus has been to establish cluster tournaments, where possible, similar to what is planned for the Asian Leg in January in Thailand. We expect to stage a number of tournaments this way to ensure a more feasible tournament programme in 2021. BWF expects that the pandemic will still influence tournament hosting throughout the whole of 2021.”
BWF can also confirm the TOTAL BWF Thomas & Uber Cup Finals 2020 men’s and women’s world team championships postponed earlier this year will now take place in Aarhus in Week 41 of the season and forms part of a tournament cluster in Denmark alongside the DANISA Denmark Open 2021 in Odense during Week 42.
Regarding the TOTAL BWF Sudirman Cup mixed team world championships 2021, BWF is in close consultation with the Chinese Badminton Association and the host city of Suzhou to identify a suitable window within the BWF Tournament Calendar 2021.
The BWF World Rankings will reopen following the HSBC BWF World Tour Finals 2020 being hosted in Week 4 2021. The calculation of the next BWF World Rankings list will be announced on Tuesday, February 2, 2021.
As previously announced, the Olympic Qualifying period for the Race to Tokyo will restart in 2021 and the first tournament counting for qualification will be the YONEX Swiss Open 2021 in Week 9.
The qualification period will be extended until Week 19 with the Indian Open being the last tournament in the qualification period. Qualification will be determined from the Race to Tokyo Rankings published on May 18, 2021. BWF Council decided that this will also be used for seedings the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021.
Source: BWF. Websites: www.bwfbadminton.com and www.bwfcorporate.com