China slashes two badminton tournaments; World Tour Finals stays on track

In a latest development, China has decided to cancel the Victor China Open 2022 and the Fuzhou China Open 2022 scheduled for later this year but maintains that the BWF World Tour Finals will continue to take place in Guangzhou in December, as planned.

After the Beijing Winter Olympics 2022, China has not hosted any major sporting event and will only resume hosting activities with the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships from 30th September in Chengdu.

The Victor China Open, which was a BWF Super 1000 tournament was scheduled to take place from 29th October to 4th November while the Fuzhou China Open BWF Super 750 was slated for 6th November to 11th November - however, both have now been called off.

Both these events would have been important for players looking to qualify for the year-ending BWF World Tour Finals.

Interestingly, India's HS Prannoy, now the World No. 15, leads the BWF Race to Guangzhou rankings at the No. 1 spot and has already earned him place in the Finals.

The BWF, in a release, stated that they cannot go ahead with the two events in China because of 'continuing complexities around COVID-19 and restrictions on travel' but the World Tour Finals will take place as planned in December.

For now, players have the following tournaments to look forward to in the remaining badminton calendar, whereby they can gain points and qualify for the Finals:

1. Canada Open Super 100 (27th September - 2nd October)

2. Vietnam Open Super 100 (27th September - 2nd October)

3. Denmark Open Super 750 (18th October - 23rd October)

4. Indonesia Masters Super 100 (18th October - 23rd October)

5. French Open Super 750 (25th October - 30th October)

6. Hylo Open Super 300 (1st November - 6th November)

7. Australian Open Super 300 (15th November - 20th November)

8. BWF World Tour Finals (14th December - 18th December)