Hong Kong’s Tse Ying Suet and Tang Chun Man gave a walkover to Germans Mark Lamsfuss and Isabel Herttrich in Round 2 of the Mixed Doubles at Thailand Open.
In her Insta post, Tse Ying explained that Hong Kong Institute of Sport advised the pairing to pull out, given a German coaching staff had tested positive at Bangkok and it was unsafe to play the pair, who were close contacts.
She added that though the Germans had tested negative several times, the “incubation period of 21 days” posed a risk.
In her post (translated from Mandarin roughly), she said, “I am sorry to announce to you that we will withdraw from the competition today. The reason is because our opponents’ coach was diagnosed with COVID-19, and they are close contacts. We received a notice from the coach before the game.
The Hong Kong Institute of Sport discussed with the Badminton Association and the Olympic Committee were consulted and believed that it was not advisable to play them. Although they had tested negative many times, considering the incubation period of 21 days, it is still seen as dangerous.”
She further noted that it was disappointing because they had looked forward to resuming playing (did not play in Denmark) and had prepared for this.
“I am really disappointed now, because we have been preparing for this competition for a long time. We entered the closed training in the sports academy in mid-December. The preparation had also been fruitful. We had hoped that we could regain the rhythm of the competition in this competition. It’s a pity that I have no choice but to quit the match, and I feel that the hard work before is a bit in vain. But we respect the decision of the Sports Institute, because there will be other competitions in the future, and we also hope that the BWF can more fully protect our athletes so that similar incidents will not happen again,” the post said.
