India at the French Open 2026: Sindhu’s final, Ashmita’s upset and a doubles dip

Here’s a review of how the Indian shuttlers including (L-R) PV Sindhu, Ashmita Chaliha and Satwik-Chirag, performed at the French Open | Photo Credit: Reuters, Getty Images

India’s French Open ended on Sunday with a single finalist and a familiar result. P.V. Sindhu reached her second Super 750 final of the year, but world No. 1 An Se-young beat her 21-16, 11-21, 12-21, extending a record in which Sindhu had never beaten her in 10 previous meetings on tour. Here is how each Indian fared and what the week showed.

P.V. Sindhu

Watch P.V. Sindhu’s shoulders rather than the shuttle. They tell you how a match will go: loose and confident while she builds an early lead, tighter as she tries to hold it, and too often that lead has to be won back.

When she is loose and the jump is clean, a rally lasts a few shots and ends in a crack from somewhere near the roof. When her feet turn heavy, the returns sag and the match drifts into someone else’s hands.

Her season ran on that same pulse. She reached the semifinals of the Malaysia Open in January and the Australian Open in June, then won the Japan Open Super 750 in Tokyo, beating Akane Yamaguchi.

𝐏𝐕 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐡𝐮 🆚 𝐀𝐧 𝐒𝐞-𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐠: 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐝-𝐭𝐨-𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝 👀 An Se-young extends her dominance over PV Sindhu to 1⃣1⃣-0⃣, maintaining her unbeaten record against the Indian shuttler with her French Open win 🏸 📸: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar (file photos) #FrenchOpen #PVSindhu #Badminton

— Sportstar (@sportstarweb) October 25, 2026

The French Open Super 750 was that pulse in compressed form. She squandered a huge lead in her opening decider and still escaped, then eased past Riko Gunji and Chiu Pin-chian. In the semifinal, Hina Akechi took a game off her, and Sindhu answered by tightening the rallies.

The final against world No. 1 An showed both sides at once. Sindhu won the first game 21-16 with sharp, short rallies, then lost the next two, 11-21 and 12-21, as the returns sagged and An fed on every loose shot. The dips no longer define her whole week, but closing the gap to the very top is still a question of discipline.

Ashmita Chaliha

Ashmita’s year began with a first-round exit at the Thailand Open, when her speed looked like an escape route from nerves.

By the Korea Masters Super 300, where she won the biggest title of her career, the same speed had become a way of applying pressure, with a half-second pause built in so that she chose the shot instead of reacting to it.

Paris was that change under the brightest light. After getting past Hang Qian Xi in the opening round, she faced Yamaguchi, a three-time world champion who feeds on impatience, absorbing pressure and waiting for the attacker to overreach. Ashmita refused the bait, kept her own tempo and won 21-19, 21-18, the biggest shock of the tournament.

Nozomi Okuhara ended her run in the quarterfinals, but it was still one of the finest weeks of her career.

Tanvi Sharma

Cross-court drops, sudden changes of pace and fearless baseline play give Tanvi one of the richest vocabularies on the circuit, and at the Taipei Open Super 300 in August it held together for a full week.

FILE PHOTO: Tanvi Sharma had a productive season on Tour, despite losing multiple times to World No.1 An. | Photo Credit: SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA

The Denmark Open and the French Open then handed her the same opponent, An Se-young, and the same lesson.

In Paris she cleared Isharani Baruah in the opening round, then lost to An in straight games, 11-21, 14-21. The tricks she played early were answered early. The fix is sequencing: build the point, then hide the surprise until late.

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty

Satwik and Chirag’s year opened superbly, with steady quarterfinals and a run to the final at the Thailand Open. Singapore in May then turned their season. They beat Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Shohibul Fikri in a three-game final and ended a long wait for a title.

Then the body objected. Satwik’s shoulder forced withdrawals at the Indonesia Open and the Japan Open, and the summer became a lesson in how fragile power is when it has to be rationed.

They still reached the World Championships quarterfinals in August, where Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang closed the door. The China Masters title followed in September, but early exits at the Asian Games and the Denmark Open, where He Jiting and Ren Xiangyu beat them in three tight games, meant they arrived in Paris short of rhythm.

Their French Open game was front-loaded: Satwik’s power forces the door open, and Chirag walks through at the net. Against home favourites Toma Junior Popov and Christo Popov, they lost the first game 19-21, levelled in the second, then faded in the decider, 13-21. It was a brief week, and a reminder that a title is only as good as the legs that follow it.

Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand

The duo’s season was one of long haul. They kept turning up in the main rounds at the India Open, the All England and the US Open, building a pair’s hardest asset, familiarity, until August paid it out at the World Championships.

They beat top pairs, including Jia Yifan and Zhang Shuxian, on the way to the bronze medal, only the second for an Indian women’s pair. Denmark in October confirmed it was no one-off: a quarterfinal run that took Malaysia’s Pearly Tan and Thinaah Muralitharan to three games.

FILE PHOTO: Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand went down in straight games to Chinese Taipei’s Lin Chih-Chun and Yang Chu-Yun in the opening round of the French Open. | Photo Credit: REUTERS

The French Open was the stumble. Chinese Taipei’s Lin Chih-Chun and Yang Chu-Yun beat them in straight games in the opening round, and their hammer-and-feather rhythm never settled.

Elite pairs, given time, read that pattern, and weaker ones can too when the first strike misses. They need a third option, such as a flatter exchange or a change of tempo, for the days when both weapons are blocked.

Ayush Shetty

Ayush’s year began with a question mark: a late-2025 back injury had trimmed his pre-season, though he recovered in time for the 2026 BWF tour.

In Ningbo, he knocked out Li Shi Feng, Jonatan Christie and world No. 1 Kunlavut Vitidsarn on the way to silver at the Badminton Asia Championships, losing only to Shi Yuqi in the final. It was India’s first men’s singles medal at the event in eight years and lifted him up the rankings.

FILE PHOTO: Ayush Shetty’s run at the French Open was cut short due to injury in the second round. | Photo Credit: REUTERS

In August, he turned the tables on Shi, beating the reigning world champion in the opening round at the World Championships before bowing out in the round of 16 to Alwi Farhan. Between those peaks came a grinding tour schedule, from All England to the Denmark Open, with enough round-of-16 and quarterfinal finishes to prove the giant-killing was no fluke.

Paris showed what those miles on the clock had taught him. His opening-round win over Kidambi Srikanth was the most revealing result of his week.

Srikanth’s wristwork and disguise took the first game, but Ayush used his height to take away his time, and the tricks lost their sting. An injury then forced him to retire against Kodai Naraoka in the next round, cutting short a run that was building well.

The rest of the squad in Paris

Lakshya Sen withdrew before his opening match, so Paris tells us little about him. Devika Sihag lost a decider to Putri Kusuma Wardani after holding a lead, a counter-puncher still in need of a way to close.

Unnati Hooda fell to Gunji in another decider, a reminder that forcing a close match rarely wins it. Isharani Baruah went out to Tanvi in the opening round, and the Pandas, Rutaparna and Swetaparna, found the elite level a step up after their Lagos title.

Published on Oct 25, 2026

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