India retains Super Series hosting rights

Despite a not-so-impressive organisation of the Super Series in the first two years, India has managed to retain the hosting rights of the India Open for another four years starting from 2014.

The BWF committee had passed quite a few strictures against the teething problems faced by the organisers during the first two editions and there was speculation that India may not be among the hosts from the next cycle.

But when BWF President Dr Kang Young Joong announced the list of 12 hosts after the Council meeting in Bangkok on Friday, the China Masters was scrapped to ensure that all countries host only one Super Series.

The China Masters Super Series has now been replaced by the Australian Super Series with Korea Super Series Premier being downgraded to a Super Series.

In other decisions, the world body decided to implement the line call technology from the 2014 season for the Super Series events with the players being allowed to challenge a certain number of decisions, rules for which would be subsequently formed.

The Council also decided to modify the draw process for the doubles event for the forthcoming Olympic Games in the wake of the match-fixing controversy that engulfed the London Games.

According to the new format, the second placed teams in each group would now be drawn by lots after the end of the preliminary stage to avoid any kind of pre-determined placing by teams in the knock out rounds.