Six Indian shuttlers including HS Pronnoy, Chirag Shetty, and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy have pulled out of the All England Open Badminton Championships as a precautionary measure over coronavirus outbreak in many countries.
"Chirag Shetty, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, Manu Attri, Sumeeth Reddy, HS Pronnoy, and Sameer Verma have withdrawn from participating in the tournament," the Badminton Association of India (BAI) sources told ANI.
However, top India shuttlers PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth, and Sai Praneeth are expected to take part in the tournament.
This is season's first World Tour Super 1000 tournament which also serves as a chance for qualification in the upcoming Tokyo Olympics 2020. The competition is scheduled to begin from March 11.
On the other hand, the novel coronavirus disease was first detected in Wuhan, China's Hubei province, in late December 2019 and has since spread worldwide. In late January, the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency in light of the epidemic.