Malaysia will be back in badminton action next year to stage the Malaysian Open and Malaysian Masters in April, according to the new calendar released by the Badminton World Federation (BWF).
Both events are scheduled back-to-back, with the Malaysia Open scheduled from March 31st to April 4th before the Malaysia Masters takes place from April 6th to 11th.
But only the Malaysia Open will serve as the Olympics qualifier ahead of the Tokyo Games, which is scheduled for August.
There will be several bubble clusters next year and Malaysia is one of them.
The season will kick off with the Asian leg in Bangkok, which comprises of two Thailand Open followed by the backdated World Tour Finals happening from January 12th to 31st.
After Malaysia, Indonesia will host the next cluster with the Indonesia Masters and Indonesia Open in June.
The All-England Championships is also scheduled to take place from March 17th to 21st.
The other big events scheduled to take place are the Swiss Open, German Open and India Open, which all fall under the Olympics qualifying period from February onwards.
BWF secretary-general Thomas Lund said the cluster events will depend on how the situation in Bangkok unfolds.
“The focus has been to establish cluster tournaments where possible similar to what is planned for the Asian Leg in January in Thailand and we expect to stage a number of tournaments this way to ensure a more feasible tournament programme in 2021.
“Although the hope is that the COVID-19 vaccine may in time create a world with less restrictions, BWF expects that the pandemic will still influence tournament hosting throughout the whole of 2021,” he said.
