I think Chen Long had a thoughtful long look at the draw and decided "to withdraw" is the best option for him and his entourage.
and fly Wong Wing Ki directly to Dubai one day before the match (also hoping the flight schedule is still possible for him to catch up on time)? nahhhh, there is nothing that bwf can do at the moment
It was coming though.. Last year it was Boe/Mogensen. sadly to say, this is just selfishness of some players. and this will happen more often without Qualifiers in tournaments triple header next year.
how did bwf get screwed? yes, but professional individual sports is a selfish job. bwf isn't gonna take care of you financially if, or when, you get hurt. if it was you what would you do? play and risk further injury or go out there and not try so hard? players should do whatever is best for them. **** happens.
But BWF's masters ATP were able to fly Carreno Busta to London after Nadal withdrew after his first round loss to Goffin.
Certainly its selfishness bordering on dishonest. is a different kind of selfishness and he certainly knew it. said he was a champion but doing this kind of off the field antics...
May I ask Griff88 to disable the quote "Sent from my ...." so that we can focus only the information you contribute?
If he has already played, I find that very strange indeed. Tennis must have a system of working out ranking points gained. I guess they did that because of the money and match arrangements. Very expensive seats have been sold and if a match doesn't take place, there is no alternative. Of course, it's the next person down the list in the rankings. I guess BWF haven't often had this problem for the finals. Before Dubai came in as a sponsor, the superseries finals was a bit hit and miss, sometimes not being held or delayed to the next year. Not good for one of the sports Premier events. Conceivably, two players in the same event might get injured. If they happen to be in the same group, then one of the groups is going to be father farcical. At least for badminton, they can have two courts on simultaneously to cover an absent match. To bring in a reserve player, you need the consent of member Associations to actually release players. Remember, players are not independent. However, I totally agree with having players on standby for late withdrawals. Not having a replacement is not good for the tournament.
As Chen Long have explained, he also skipped the first four rounds of the CBSL (R5 is on 21st Dec after the SSF) partly because he felt uncomfortable with his knee and when he arrived at Dubai , it acted up during training session, hence he decided not to take the risk; otherwise, why go to the trouble of flying all the way there, not to mention the expenses.
Nadal's points/games/set won in the first round robin match were used for Carreno Busta's record going further forward in the tournament.
