Saina Nehwal, who was prepping for her first tournament since the All England Open in March last year, has tested positive for COVID-19. Subsequently, she has withdrawn from the ongoing Thailand Open badminton championship. The London Olympics bronze medallist was awaiting her first match against Kisona Salvaduray of Malaysia in the first round on Tuesday. Meanwhile, men’s singles player H.S. Prannoy has also tested COVID-19 positive and pulled out from the tournament as well.
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Both Nehwal and Prannoy will be taken to a hospital for treatment for a minimum of 10 days, The Hindu reported. The Indian players were awaiting this chance to play nearly ten months after the coronavirus pandemic disrupted the international tours.
After the announcement, Nehwal's husband Parupalli Kashyap has also been quarantined and taken to hospital for tests. They both had only recently recovered from COVID-19 in December 2020. "Both Saina Nehwal and HS Prannoy gave their third COVID-19 tests in Bangkok which have come back positive. They are now being taken to the hospital for further tests," a Badminton Authority of India (BAI) source told Zee News on Tuesday.
Earlier, former world No 1, Nehwal had expressed displeasure at the restrictions imposed by the Badminton World Federation’s (BWF) as part of its coronavirus protocols in the secured bio-bubble. She had tweeted, “The physios and trainers cannot meet us during the entire tour after all of us have tested negative?” She had further said that the players “want to play the tournament in good condition.”
Thailand Open is scheduled to kickstart from January 12 and will go on till January 17.
PV Sindhu last played competitively at the All England Championships in March last year.
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After the news broke early this morning, Nehwal on Tuesday said that she has yet to receive her test report. She tweeted saying, "I still didn’t receive the covid test report from yesterday it’s very confusing and today just before the warm up for the match they tell me to got to hospital in bangkok ... saying that I m positive ..according to rules the report should come in 5 hours.. @bwfmedia."
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