In order to thwart the trend of top shuttlers skipping national camps, the Badminton Association of India (BAI) has made it mandatory for players to attend camps before any big tournament.
A top BAI official said on Saturday that in case any player opts out of the camp, he has to go through selection trials to get selected to the national side.
"Training camps are mandatory for players. If anybody wants to opt out, he will have to go through selection trials before national team is selected for any championship," BAI vice-president T P S Puri said.
"If a player's name is in the team, then he will have to attend the camp. We are going to apply it strictly in future."
Top shuttler Chetan Anand had skipped the last elite camp for the 2010 Commonwealth Games as he did not commit himself for such longer duration camps.
When asked whether the strict norm will be followed for the Commonwealth Games preparatory camp as well, Puri said: "the players who have been selected for long-term training cannot afford to miss camps."
However, the senior players had reservations against such long-term training schedule as they felt playing in tournaments during that period would be better for them.
The camp for the World Championship in Madrid, beginning on September 18, starts on Sunday at Hyderabad as all the top shuttlers will reach the country on Saturday night after participating in the Korean Open and Hong Kong Open championships.
Players who have qualified for the World Championship are Anup Sridhar, Chetan Anand, Saina Nehwal, Trupti Murgunde, Rupesh Kumar, Sanave Thomas, V Diju, Jwala Gutta, Shruti Kurien, B R Meenakshi.
