Seven players withdrawn after testing positive for COVID-19

The India Open tournament was on Thursday rocked by the COVID-19 pandemic with as many as seven Indian shuttlers, including reigning world championship silver medallist Kidambi Srikanth, withdrawing from the event after testing positive for the virus.

The Badminton World Federation (BWF) announced this in the wee hours, before the Badminton Association of India (BAI) confirmed the names.

Besides Srikanth, the other players withdrawn are Ashwini Ponnappa, Ritika Rahul Thkar, Treesa Jolly, Mithun Manjunath, Simran Aman Singh and Khushi Gupta.

“The players returned a positive result to a mandatory RT-PCR test conducted on Tuesday. Doubles partners deemed close contact of the seven players have also been withdrawn from the tournament,” the world governing body said in a statement.

“The players will not be replaced in the main draw and their opponents will be given a walkover to the next round.”

N Sikki Reddy, Dhruv Kapila, Gayatri Gopichand, Akshan Shetty and Kavya Gupta were also pulled out of the competition after being deemed closed contacts of the infected. They, however, didn’t test positive for the virus.

While Sikki partners Ashwini in women’s doubles, Dhruv plays mixed doubles with Sikki, Akshan forms the mixed doubles team with Simran, while Kavya is the women’s doubles partner of Khushi.

Initially, the BWF didn’t reveal the names of the seven players.