Halted: Some cleaning up work taking place after Malaysian Open matched were suspended due to leaking roof at Axiata Arena. — FAIHAN GHANI/The Star
KUALA LUMPUR: The leaking due to heavy downpour at the Axiata Arena in Bukit Jalil could cause several first round matches of the Malaysian Open, originally scheduled to be completed today (Jan 7), be postponed and rescheduled for tomorrow (Jan 8).
BWF Senior Tournament Series Manager, S. Selvam, expressed his surprise over the incident, explaining that courts two and three were most affected, leaving them to only continue matches on one court.
The BWF are currently working with the Malaysia Stadium Corporation (MSC) to repair both courts as quickly as possible.
However, Selvam did not rule out the possibility that some matches affected by the damaged court could be rescheduled for tomorrow.
This is due to BWF's decision not to extend all of today’s scheduled matches, as they were concerned it could run past 1am, which may affect the players involved.
"We are still assessing the playability of court two. Court two seems to be the worst affected, while for court three, we are hopeful that within one or two hours we can restart," said Selvam.
"Once we have assessed all these, we will look at the schedule again. If necessary, we will shut down court two and move all matches to courts one and three. That will definitely make play longer, but we do not plan to stay up all night to finish the matches.
"We will discuss this with the referees', team and with BAM to decide at which point we suspend play today and continue tomorrow. That is our current plan," said Selvam in a emergency press conference today.
