The Badminton World Federation (BWF) has released its schedule for the next two years, and it features a full-range of Super Opens and international events.
The calendar will feature an expanded tournament total of 31 events. The season-opening event will be in New Delhi for the BWF Super 750 India Open followed by the Super 1000 Malaysia Open.
The next two years will see an increased number of Super 500 and Super 1000 tournaments.
“More Super 1000, Super 750, and Super 500 World Tour tournaments enable us to commit to higher prize money, increased player opportunities, greater coverage on television and online, and spectacular presentation, all contributing to an enhanced world-class sports product that we seek,” said BWF Secretary General Thomas Lund, who is hopeful of the badminton calendar returning to normalcy.
“We also feel we no longer require cluster tournaments previously introduced to negate the complexities of COVID-19 travel,” Lund said.
“This will help to ease some of the stresses on players and teams, giving them more freedom to pick and choose the events they play as they plan their all-important Paris 2024 qualification run.”
COVID-19 has pushed many tournaments into 2023 causing scheduling headaches, and forcing players to prioritize participation in qualification for the Paris 2024 Olympics.
The Olympic qualification period for the Paris 2024 Games will begin on May 1, 2023 and run through April 28, 2024, before the final list of the initial participants is unveiled.
The Sudirman Cup in Suzhou, China and the BWF World Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark will be the two most important tournaments looking towards Paris 2024.