Ashmita Chaliha questions BWF: Are tournament standards only strict for India?

About 30 minutes before the quarter-final of the Indonesia Masters Super 100, Ashmita Chaliha walked onto the court in a haze-filled arena in Surabaya. A few days earlier, the Indian shuttler had stood in a brightly lit, clean hall in New Delhi – where her home country hosted the World Championships for the first time in 17 years. The distance between the two experiences was just a short flight, but her feeling about the air – literally – was completely different. “Imagine if this tournament were held in India. How would people react?” Chaliha asked after clearing the second round, according to media reports. That statement came right on a day when she had just secured her second consecutive victory. She was playing well, as expected of the top seed at a Super 100 event. But clearly, what troubled her was not on the scoreboard. Ashmita Chaliha entered the tournament as the No. 1 seed. She defeated Pornpicha Choeikeewong of Thailand 21-17, 23-21, then overcame Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in a dramatic three-game battle: 10-21, 21-10, 21-17. The two wins sent her to the quarter-finals, extending what pundits call a “season to remember.” But if you only looked at the numbers, you would miss the most important part of the story. The Indonesia Masters Super 100 belongs to the lowest tier of the BWF World Tour. It is where players ranked outside the top 20 or 30 seek ranking points to improve their standings. Chaliha, 26, is in her competitive prime and needs those points to challenge for spots at bigger tournaments. Yet, precisely at the place where she expected to accumulate achievements, the playing conditions forced her to speak out: the arena was covered by a smog-like haze, directly affecting visibility and shuttlecock judgment. What is striking is the contrast in how tournaments are evaluated. When India hosted the India Open, criticism poured in: air quality, cold, hygiene issues. Denmark’s Anders Antonsen withdrew from the 2026 India Open over pollution concerns and accepted a fine. Mia Blichfeldt, another Danish player, publicly complained about hygiene conditions in India. Those stories were repeatedly shared on international badminton forums, turning India into a symbol of organizational failure. Chaliha does not deny that. But when she arrived in Indonesia – a neighbouring country where she now lives and competes – she noticed a puzzling asymmetry: the same haze, the same feeling of breathlessness, yet nobody raised big questions. “We scrutinise India under a microscope, but we close our eyes when the same thing happens elsewhere,” she said bitterly. Data from Chaliha’s two matches reveals an interesting picture. She won, but was far from dominant. Against Pornpicha Choeikeewong, she had to win 23-21 in the second game – a sign of resilience rather than superiority. Against Goh Jin Wei, the former junior world champion whose heart condition once forced her to pause her career, Chaliha lost the opening game 10-21, only to respond 21-10 and 21-17. The huge point swings between games suggest that her opponent’s stamina faded dramatically in the third game, rather than Chaliha making superior tactical adjustments. A player performing as well as Chaliha still had to struggle against lower-ranked opponents. That says two things: first, she is not yet at the level where she can easily crush players below her. Second, the court conditions did not really help her showcase her true ability. When haze makes the shuttle trajectory hard to read, controlling the score becomes a different fight – one that is not about technique, but about adapting to the environment. From the perspective of a regular badminton observer, I realise that every number exists within a context. Scores like 21-17 or 21-10 cannot capture the difficulty of judging shuttle movement when visibility is reduced by haze. Advanced statistics about unforced errors or net winners would mean nothing if we do not factor in air quality – something that is not publicly measured at Super 100 events. The more precise the numbers, the wider the gap between people and the match. Chaliha’s story is not merely a complaint. It exposes a gap in sports governance. Super 100 events are where young and mid-ranked players – those without a loud voice – are forced to accept substandard conditions to earn points. They do not have the luxury of top-10 stars who can choose their events or withdraw for health concerns. For them, if they do not play, they lose points, income, and opportunities. The gap is not in the code, but in the eyes of those who read the code – when people only focus on one side, they miss the root of the problem. Some will say Chaliha is exaggerating. Super 100 events are not heavily funded, and Indonesia’s dry-season air quality is often hazardous but beyond organisers’ control. But that very logic reveals the injustice: if India is blamed for seasonal air pollution, why should Indonesia be exempt? If top players have the right to refuse to play at the India Open due to health concerns, why are players ranked 50-80 at Super 100 events not given similar protection? Notably, Chaliha is no stranger to defending her own interests. She has praised India’s Sports Authority of India (SAI) and Badminton Association of India (BAI) for successfully organising the World Championships in New Delhi, an event publicly lauded by the BWF President. That success creates a double impact: it raises India’s status on the world badminton map, and it creates a “benchmark effect” – those who have experienced high standards are now more likely to notice deficiencies elsewhere. From a cynical viewpoint, one might say Chaliha is merely using the reputation of a successful event to attack BWF. But in fact, she is asking a valid question: when will BWF set minimum air-quality standards for all World Tour tournaments, regardless of tier? Does a little-known player at a Super 100 event deserve the same health protection as a world champion? A net-cord brush is not destiny – it is just a tiny deviation between expectation and probability. But when an entire system allows substandard conditions to persist at smaller events, that is no longer luck. BWF’s answer remains unresolved. But the history of sports has shown many times that change often begins with voices considered the smallest. Ashmita Chaliha may not win a Super 100 title, but she has scored points in another way – by making those responsible re-examine how they run the tournament system. The question hovering over the Surabaya sky, one day, will need an answer not in promises, but in action.