Saina, Marin criticise back-breaking tour schedule for 2018

New Delhi : Saina Nehwal and Carolina Marin have added their voices to the protests over intense tournament scheduling from the coming year. The Badminton World Federation (BWF) has made it mandatory for the top players to contest in at least 12 tournaments from 2018.
The latest to criticise the back-breaking calendar are Saina and Spain’s Marin, both former world No. 1 in women’s singles. Player fatigue and recovery were big talking points for the marquee players at the launch of the forthcoming Premier Badminton League (PBL) here today.
“The issue is practice. There are some players who can play back-to-back tournaments,” Saina said when asked about her thoughts on the new BWF calendar. “I am a player who cannot play back-to-back tournaments. I definitely need a lot of time before big events to get my best out.”
The packed schedule starts with PBL-3, which begins on December 23 and ends on January 14. After this, there are two masters level tournaments – Malaysia (January 16-21), Indonesia (January 23-28), followed by the India Open in New Delhi (January 30-February 4). Then there’s the Swiss Open in February, followed by the German Open and All-England in March.
Too cramped
All players including Saina have a reason to be worried. “Looking at 2018, the way BWF has changed the season and looking at the CWG and Asian Games, I would say that it’s not right for top players,” Saina said. “It’s too cramped and I being a player who has won some events, I can say it’s not easy for one player to win 12-13 Superseries events. There will be many champions and all of them tired. It’s going to be really tough for all of us. By the time the World Championship finishes, it’s like two weeks for the Asian Games. Most of us will be tired with the training we did in five weeks before that. We won’t be having five weeks as we have four Superseries before that and it’s compulsory to play 12 Superseries.”
No time to recover
Marin, who has fought many battles with Indian aces Saina and PV Sindhu, backed Saina. “I totally agree with what Saina said before. Because with more tournaments in the year it is going to be really tough as we won’t have time to recover between tournaments. This will be really tough (on players),” Marin said.
The two said they haven’t made up their mind about which tournaments to play or sit out. Incidentally, Marin doesn’t get affected as much as Saina by next year’s scheduling because Spain does not figure in the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games. She suggested that the players have to decide while on tour which events to play and miss. “Some of us have to decide which tournaments to play and sit out. After PBL, we have three tournaments in a row and maybe some won’t play in all those three tournaments, some will miss a few events for sure,” Marin explained.