All England Open 2021: Indonesian shuttlers forced to withdraw over COVID-19 concerns

Indonesia have been forced to withdraw from the ongoing All England Open 2021 badminton championship, after a passenger on their flight tested COVID-19 positive on arrival in Britain.

The likes of current men's doubles world champions Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan, world no. 5 Anthony Sinisuka Ginting and men's fifth seed Jonatan Christie will now play no further part at the 2021 All England Open.

“In accordance with UK Government requirements, the entire team will self-isolate for 10 days from the date of their inbound flight after a person travelling onboard tested positive for COVID-19. All Indonesian players will not be able to compete in the current or next round of the tournament and have therefore been withdrawn from the All England Open 2021,” read a statement.

The Indonesian sports minister is reportedly displeased with the exclusion of the team and has urged the national body to pursue the matter with the Badminton World Federation (BWF).

All Indonesian 🇮🇩 players have been withdrawn from the @YonexAllEngland . A person travelling on their inboard flight has tested positive for #COVID19, with all personnel to self-isolate for 10 days.#HSBCbadminton #BWFWorldTour #AllEngland2021 https://t.co/4ozrtdyyDf

— BWF (@bwfmedia) March 17, 2021

Several Indonesian shuttlers got off to winning starts at the All England Open on Wednesday. Fifth-seed Jonatan Christie clinched a resounding victory over Thailand's Kunlavut Vitidsar 21-13, 24-22 in the men's singles event.

Men’s doubles top seeds Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo also notched up a comfortable win against the English pair of Matthew Clare and Ethan van Leeuwen.

As things stand now, the next scheduled opponents of the Indonesian players will receive walkovers to the next round.

All England Open 2021: India given green signal after three shuttlers test negative in retests

PV Sindhu opened her All England Open 2021 campaign with a win on Wednesday.

The Indian contingent was thrown into disarray by a COVID-19 testing blunder after the matches were delayed by a few hours on Wednesday.

The development came after three Indian players and one support staff tested positive for COVID-19. All four were negative in follow-up testing conducted by the governing body.

The prestigious All England Championships is a key preparatory event in the run-up to the Tokyo Olympics.

The five-day tournament in Birmingham is not offering points in the Road to Tokyo rankings, which has led China, South Korea and the Chinese Taipei shuttlers to give it a miss.