The 2021 Macau Badminton Open has officially been canceled by the Badminton World Federation (BWF).
In a statement, the international governing body of the sport announced that the local event, together with the Korean round, have fallen victim to the Covid-19 pandemic and the restrictions imposed to control and prevent the virus.
“The ongoing Covid-19 restrictions and complications left local organizers with no choice but to cancel the tournaments,” BWF said in the statement.
“Unfortunately, it is not feasible to conduct any tournaments in China this year,” the global organization said, adding that no dates or locations have been rescheduled.
The Macau Open was set to take place between November 2 and 7 this year, and it now joins a long list of other canceled events including the Korean Open (August 31 to September 5), China Open (September 21 to 26), Japan Open (September 28 to October 3), Fuzhou China Open (November 9 to 14) and Hong Kong Open (November 16 to 21).
The Korean Open was expected to mark the resumption of the BWF World Tour, the calendar of which was interrupted earlier this year. At the time the BWF decided to schedule only an All-England tournament: which was the only BWF event hosted this year before the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Despite the large number of canceled events, the BWF says it is “still committed to delivering the remainder of the 2021 calendar as planned,” adding, “We look to provide players with a safe and structured platform to earn important world ranking points and prize money in these coming months.”
Two of the planned upcoming events are the Malaysian Open and Malaysian Masters, which are currently postponed.
On such a matter, the BWF added, “A few other remaining tournaments [the Malaysian ones] are still categorized as postponed. Final decisions on those tournaments will come at a later date.”
Also postponed are the World Junior Championships, scheduled for October 4 to 17 in China.
The Macau Badminton Open was part of the HSBC BWF World Tour – Super 300 series, a Grade 2 tournament awarding USD200,000 (1.6 million patacas) in prize money.
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