Asian Games 2026: Why India’s badminton campaign failed to meet expectations
India’s Asian Games 2026 badminton campaign brought a men’s team bronze but disappointment in the individual events, with Satwik-Chirag’s shock exit and concerns over scheduling.
Updated : Oct 09, 2026 15:57 IST - 3 MINS READ
After three medals in Hangzhou, the Indian badminton contingent’s solitary bronze in Nagoya wasn’t expected. | Photo Credit: AP
After three medals in Hangzhou, the Indian badminton contingent’s solitary bronze in Nagoya wasn’t expected. | Photo Credit: AP
For Indian badminton, the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games was anything but a pleasant experience. With the team and individual events packed into 10 days at the Ichinomiya City Municipal Gymnasium, it was an intense schedule.
The team events were held first, with both the Indian men and women beginning with easy 3-0 wins over Bangladesh and Kazakhstan, respectively, in the round of 16. Their next opponent was host Japan.
The men’s team, runner-up at Hangzhou 2022, looked set to go 0-1 down when Lakshya Sen pulled off an incredible comeback to defeat Kodai Naraoka in the first singles rubber. The men’s doubles duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, and Ayush Shetty (India’s No. 2 in singles), wrapped up the contest with straight-game wins in the following matches to secure a place on the podium. But reigning champion China ended India’s hopes of a gold medal for the second edition in a row with a 3-1 victory in the semifinals, where only Satwik-Chirag managed to win a match.
For the Indian women’s team, the depth in the Japanese squad, which included former world champions such as Akane Yamaguchi and Nozomi Okuhara, as well as youngster Tomoka Miyazaki, was simply too much to handle. But in that 1-3 loss, Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand’s win over World No. 3 Yuki Fukushima and Maya Matsumoto was a big positive going forward.
India suffered a huge blow on the first day of the individual competition as reigning Asian Games men’s doubles gold medallists Satwik-Chirag, fresh off a China Masters title, succumbed to a 21-12, 19-21, 14-21 first-round loss to World No. 36 Pakkapon Teeraratsakul and Peeratchai Sukphun.
Lakshya’s inconsistency came to the fore once again in his second-round defeat to Singapore’s Loh Kean Yew, the eventual silver medallist. Ayush bowed out in the round of 16 after losing to 36-year-old Chinese Taipei veteran Chou Tien-chen.
The packed schedule for the individual events forced players to play multiple matches in a day, leaving very little time for recovery.
P. V. Sindhu and Unnati Hooda, India’s entries in women’s singles, both fought hard before eventually running out of gas in their respective quarterfinal clashes. Both Indians later said the scheduling could have been managed better. In Sindhu’s case, playing the quarterfinal, which she lost 21-11, 18-21, 10-21 to China’s Chen Yu Fei, on Court 4 also meant no Hawk-Eye and no provision for player challenges in case of close line calls.
Treesa-Gayatri had a stacked draw, but after winning a bronze medal at the World Championships, no one would have made the mistake of taking them lightly. The duo eked out a three-game victory in the first round before stunning Fukushima and Matsumoto once again. However, Malaysia’s Pearly Tan and Thinaah Muralitharan, another Top 5 pair, did not allow the Indian duo to settle in the quarterfinals, extending their head-to-head advantage to 7-2.
Dhruv Kapila and Tanisha Crasto gave a scare to World No. 1 Feng Yan Zhe and Huang Dong Ping of China in the mixed doubles quarterfinals before a 14-21, 21-18, 18-21 loss.
Published on Oct 09, 2026
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