Kuala Lumpur: The Badminton World Federation (BWF) has confirmed that World No. 1 men’s singles player Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia would not play in the China Open that will be held from Nov 15 to Nov 20 in Fuzhou, China.
Lee’s withdrawal from China Open was due to a hamstring injury he sustained in the Denmark Open quarterfinals in which he lost to the Frenchman Brice Leverdez.
Although Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) has registered Lee for both China and Hong Kong Open, when asked by reporters in a public event on Tuesday, Lee also revealed that he will skip the China Open.
“I am not sure if I’ll play in Hong Kong Open yet, it all depends on my injury and how I feel about my condition,” said Lee.
“I’ll spend the next two weeks to observe my recovery process. After all, the most important event of the year – the Olympics, has already ended, I am putting more focused on next year’s schedule,” added Lee.
Lee who was ranked No. 5 in the BWF Destination Dubai rankings currently, and with only the top 8 players in the ranking could qualify for the Dubai World Superseries Finals, it would be very unlikely Lee could make that tournament.
In addition, Lee’s nemesis Lin Dan and reigning Olympic champion Chen Long who were ranked 13th and 20th in the ranking respectively also have a slim chance of making the cut for that tournament. Therefore, Badminton fans around the world may need to wait until 2017 before they can see these 3 players to compete against each other on the badminton court.
