Denmark Open: Saina Nehwal, Parupalli Kashyap Withdraw

Indian badminton star duo Saina Nehwal and Parupalli Kashyap on Tuesday withdrew from the Denmark Open Super 750 tournament, which will restart the international calendar at Odense from October 13.

The BWF World Tour was cancelled following the completion of the All England Championships in March in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.

"I withdrew from the Denmark Open. I decided that I will start the season from January only with the Asian tour," Saina, the London Olympics bronze-medallist, told PTI.

Earlier, the couple had sent their entries for the USD 750,000 tournament and also submitted their consent letter to the Badminton Association of India (BAI) last month for the same, a PTI report said.

Nehwal, a two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist, said, "There is no injury issue but if three tournaments were there it would have made sense… I thought directly from January, I can go for the Asian tour."

The withdrawal of former world no.1 Saina, one of the Olympic hopefuls for next year's Tokyo Games, means there will be no Indian participation in the women's singles event at Odense as world champion P V Sindhu has already pulled out, the report said.

Kashyap, currently ranked world No.24, also decided to skip the event for similar reasons.

"I too feel it is not worth the risk to go all the way for one tournament. It is better to start the season afresh participating in the Asia leg from January," the London Games quarterfinalist said to PTI.