Badminton association to blame for Saina missing out

Chief coach Gopichand admits slip-up but BAI should own up too

Badminton association to blame for Saina missing out

Chief coach Gopichand admits slip-up but BAI should own up too

THERE is nothing Saina Nehwal would have liked more than match her wits against the top players in the world in an effort to break into the top three.

But due to a deadline goof-up, she will miss out on the action at the China leg of the BWF World Series.

Badminton World Series events are as important as tennis Grand Slams.

What went wrong and who is to blame?u00a0 Says BAI official Girish Natu: "The rules of BWF clearly state that they must receive the entries from National associations before the deadline and that no exception can be made for late entries.

"In other cases, the players themselves have to submit their entries to me at least four days before the entries close.

This is when they fund their own trip. In any case, for individual championships, entries have to be cleared by the national coach.

For the China event I received the entries signed by Gopichand on August 12 - one day after the entries closed for the China event."

Gopichand, who was busy with the recently concluded World Championships in Hyderabad where he was also Tournament Director, admitted a lapse.

"The whole thing was a genuine slip of mind. None of us, including Saina, Chetan Anand or Jwala Gutta realised that the entries were closing on August 11 and obviously by the time I gave the entries to Girish, it was late.
u00a0
In a way, we are all to blame," said the former All-England champion.

In the opinion of this writer, the BAI is at fault simply because there was no follow-up in this case.

Sure, the submitting the entries to BAI slipped Gopichand's mind but isn't it the duty of the association to remind the coach too? After all, they run the sport in the country.

The author is a former India player

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