Although the Badminton Association of India (BAI) is yet to officially announce the teams for the European circuit — which comprises the German Open, the All-England Open and the Swiss Open — and the Senior ABC Championship, India’s No 2 shuttler Trupti Murgunde has been dropped for the three events in Europe, but will be travelling to Malaysia for the April 10-15 ABC event. The European circuit kicks off from February 27.

Chief national coach Pullela Gopichand said the selectors had made the right move by dropping the out-of-form Trupti for the European circuit but added that she will be on the flight to Malaysia. “It’s a question of whether you want to protect a player’s ranking or a player’s game,” Gopichand said when asked why the country’s second-best shuttler did not feature in the Europe-bound squad.

The former All-England champion added: “I think you need to protect the latter and I support the selectors who felt Trupti should train harder considering her performance in the nationals. (Trupti lost in straight games in the semis to Aditi Mutatkar). Trupti may be the No 2 player in terms of rankings, but performance-wise it’s Aditi who’s next to Saina (Nehwal) at the moment. Having said that, Trupti will be playing the ABC meet in Malaysia.”

Trupti, however, said the reason given to her by the Federation was that she did not make herself available for the camp that was initially supposed to get underway today, but since many shuttlers are playing in Dehradun it will now start only on February 7 at Hyderabad.

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