Seven players withdraw after testing positive

The India Open was on Thursday rocked by COVID-19 since as many as seven Indian shuttlers, including Kidambi Srikanth, withdrew from the Super 500 event after testing positive for the coronavirus.

The Badminton World Federation (BWF) announced it in the wee hours, before the Badminton Association of India (BAI) confirmed the names. Besides Srikanth, Ashwini Ponnappa, Ritika Rahul Thkar, Treesa Jolly, Mithun Manjunath, Simran Aman Singh and Khushi Gupta were forced to withdraw after contracting the virus. “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 Doubles partners deemed close contact of the seven players have also been withdrawn from the tournament,” world governing body BWF said in a statement.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 had to pull out of the event after being deemed closed contacts of those infected. They, however, didn’t test positive for the coronavirus.