WHILE most countries have started easing their lockdowns, badminton's international arena is far from opening its door.
Yesterday, the Badminton World Federation (BWF) were forced again to axe their events — this time the Swiss Open and European Championships.
The move came just a week after the world body announced the cancellation of three other events: Australian Open, Hyderabad Open and Korea Masters on their revamped 2020 calendar.
The changes do not really affect the Malaysian badminton fraternity, but there are fears that major tournaments like the Thomas and Uber Cup Finals may not take place this year.
As it is, BWF have rescheduled the tournament twice this year, with the new dates being Oct 3-11 in Aarhus, Denmark.
"It's hard to say, the European Championships does not affect us Malaysians but we somewhat expected the Swiss Open to be cancelled," said BAM secretary general Datuk Kenny Goh.
"We can only monitor the situation and wait for further directives from BWF.
"I believe everyone will only start scrambling for dates next year," added Kenny.
Apart from announcing a revamped calendar for the rest of the year, BWF also confirmed that Olympic qualifying will only resume in January 2021.
Earlier, BWF suspended all their World Tour events and world rankings after the All England in March.
The Malaysia Open, originally scheduled for March 31-April 5, has since been postponed to Nov 24-29.
However, BAM are still mulling over the practicality of hosting the event this year.