Saina to miss China Masters due to authorities' goof-up

India's badminton ace Saina Nehwal will not be able to take part in China Masters Open tournament as authorities forgot to e-mail her entry to the organisers on time.

Saina had her mark on the world stage last year -- she had beaten the then World Champion, Zhu Lin of China, in the quarter-final. This could have been an opportunity for the World No 7 to consolidate her position and added to her ranking points.

China Masters Super Series Badminton Tournament will be played from September 15-20.

India badminton coach Gopichand said, "Till August entries were going directly, we still had to finalise plans from September till December, but since the sports secretary has been ill we did not have the meeting on time. Also, the rush during the world championships meant that priority was given to the world championships so we actually missed the deadline by a day's time."

Saina told TIMES NOW that she also neglected to remind her coach to send the entry. "Actually the world championships were going on and I think nobody realised that there was another tournament immediately afterwards. I also forgot to tell Gopi sir, and he also could not tell officials to send the entry on time. This way, things got delayed."u00a0

V Diju, World No 8 in Mixed Doubles, said it was 'sad' if the players' rankings. "Really, if Saina and me and Jwala miss a superseries it's really bad for us, we are on good rankings now and if we skip u2013 others' rankings really go up," he said.

The Badminton Association of India however, insists it is trying to get the entries accepted for the mega event - but if they fail, it will be a chance lost for the bunch of Indian shuttlers.