Poland’s Robert Mateusiak and Nadiezda Zieba have successfully challenged a change to the London 2012 programme that left them playing twice in one day.
The mixed doubles pair complained after the Badminton World Federation (BWF) announced dramatic revisions to the playing schedule on the eve of the competition.
The changes would have meant Mateusiak and Zieba playing both the Danish pair of Joachim Fischer and Christinna Pedersen and Canadians Toby Ng and Grace Gao on Monday.
They will now play the Canadians on Tuesday. They were initially told after the draw was made on Monday that they would open the competition against them on Saturday.
Instead, they began their campaign against Japan’s Shintaro Ikeda and Reiko Shiota this morning.
Zieba said: “We are so angry because it is only one day before competition. For us, it’s worse because the Japanese is a big, important match.”
The BWF made the alterations after realising they had not followed their own regulations concerning group matches when drawing up the schedule.
The rules stipulate that when using a round-robin stage, as they are for the first round in London, the highest-ranked participants in each group must play the lowest first.
The British mixed doubles pair of Chris Adcock and Imogen Bankier were among the most severely affected.
Having thought they would begin at 8.30am on Sunday, the Anglo-Scottish duo were told they would be in action at 9.40am on day one.