Asian Games 2026: India fail to win individual badminton medal after 12 years

The Indian badminton contingent finished without zero individual medals in the Asian Games. PV Sindhu, Unnati Hooda, Treesa-Gayati, and Kapila/Crasto lost their quarter-finals today.

In Short

• India's badminton campaign at Asian Games came to an end
• The badminton contingent did not win any individual medal
• India finished with just 1 team medal in badminton

The Indian badminton contingent's disappointing campaign came to an end at the Asian Games on September 27. The power-packed Indian team, which had arrived with medal hopes in the competition, finished without a single individual medal at the tournament.

PV Sindhu, Unnati Hooda, Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand, and Dhruv Kapila-Tanisha Crasto lost their respective quarter-finals to be knocked out of the campaign. The losses were heart-breaking, especially considering India were playing higher-ranked opponents in all of their ties, and at least three of those matches could have gone either way.

Asian Games Live: September 27 Updates

The losses meant that the star-studded line-up led by PV Sindhu and Lakshya Sen failed to bring home an individual medal for the first time in 12 years. The last time India returned without an individual medal was in 2014. Kidambi Srikanth, Parupalli Kashyap and Saina Nehwal were some of the top names in that campaign.

INDIA'S INDIVIDUAL MEDALS SINCE ASIAD 2014

• 2014 - No individual medal
• 2018 - PV Sindhu - silver, Saina Nehwal - bronze
• 2022 - HS Prannoy - bronze
• 2026 - No individual medal

The saving grace for the Indian team this year was the men's team clinching a bronze medal. Playing against defending champions China, India lost 1-3 in the semi-finals on September 23.

A HEARTBREAKING DAY

September 27 was a difficult day for the Indian badminton contingent and the fans. India were competing in the quarter-finals of four separate events - Sindhu and Unnati in the women's singles, Kapila/Crasto in the mixed doubles, and Treesa/Gayatri in the women's doubles. The equation was simple in many ways - win the match, and ensure a medal.

However, it was easier said than done. All four were facing top-10 opponents in their respective disciplines, and it would have taken a monumental fight for each of them to stay alive in the competition.

On top of that, the scheduling troubles at the Asian Games meant that almost none of the players came into the match well-rested.

Treesa and Gayatri were the first to fall, losing to Malaysia's World No.5 Pearly Tan and Thinaah Muralitharan. Tan/Muralitharan targeted Gayatri Gopichand's backhand and tried to shift her to the back of the court. The move worked as it brought Treesa forward, from where she could not execute her powerful smashes.

Treesa/Gayatri lost the opening game 18-21, and from there on, the errors crept in. The second game was a much simpler affair, with coordination issues finishing off their campaign at 9-21.

However, on the right-hand side of Court 1, where Treesa/Gayatri were playing, Dhruv Kapila and Tanisha Crasto put up a sensational show.

Playing against the World No.1 mixed doubles pair of Feng Yan Zhe and Huang Dongping, the Indian duo stretched the Chinese pair into three games and nearly pulled off an upset.

After losing the first game 14-21, Kapila/Crasto made a remarkable comeback, winning the second 21-18. They stretched the Chinese pair to 18-21 in the third and final game, but eventually gave up after a gruelling battle of 1 hour and 16 minutes.

UNNNATI, SINDHU PUT UP BRAVE FIGHTS

With the mood set for the day, it felt only a matter of time before young Unnati Hooda would be unable to put up a fight against Akane Yamaguchi.

A tired Unnati turned up against the World No.3 in the first women's singles match on Court 1, less than 24 hours after playing her last game.

Unnati had clearly not recovered, and that showed as she was slow to get off the blocks and lost her opening game 16-21. The 19-year-old made a big comeback in the second game, winning it 21-14. Unnati's knack of attacking from odd angles troubled Yamaguchi, who got sucked into her predictable plan of forcing Unnati to her backhand before dropping the shuttle short in the first court.

The third game turned out to be a battle of mental toughness. Both players, struggling due to extreme fatigue, were reduced to walking pace in the third and final game.

The final 12 points of the match came only via unforced errors. Both players either hit it long or wide, or simply put their smashes into the net.

In the end, Unnati made more mistakes and lost the match 16-21, 21-14, 17-21 in 66 minutes.

After Unnati's loss, PV Sindhu was the last remaining challenger in the Indian contingent, but she went down to Tokyo Olympic champion Chen Yu Fei in another gruelling three-game battle - 21-11, 18-21, 10-21, which lasted for an hour and 15 minutes.

It was especially unfair on Sindhu given that she had played her last match deep into the evening. Within 12 hours of playing that game, she was asked to return to the court and get ready for yet another high-intensity match against a top-ranked opponent.

'A MEDIOCRE ASIAN GAMES'

The scheduling problems were not limited to India's quarter-final day. Players had been raising concerns about the congested calendar throughout the competition, with some forced to play multiple matches in a single day and others given little time to recover between ties.

“Definitely, having two singles matches in a day, I have not seen that in ages. I don’t know who is scheduling it. Obviously, the 29th is the last date for badminton. But the Asian Games go on till the 4th of October. We still have five more days. I don’t understand the whole issue of not extending it by a day,” Prannoy told Badminton Association of India in an interview.

“Nobody was told anything. It’s just sad,” he added.

“It’s sad that players can’t go back to the hotel and rest and come back. I am sure a lot of players would have stayed back. It takes two hours.”

The scheduling issues were compounded by the accommodation and transport arrangements. For the first time at the Asian Games, accommodation was not centralised in a traditional Games Village. Athletes were instead housed across hotels in Aichi-Nagoya, while some stayed in makeshift containers on a cruise ship stationed at the city's port.

For Prannoy, that took away from one of the defining features of a multi-sport event.

“Never felt we were playing the Asian Games. It felt like we were playing the Japan Open. The whole fun and the whole point of multi-sport events is you get to meet the rest of the players. There is an opportunity to mingle with them. There is an opportunity to have a conversation with them. We only felt that when we went for the opening ceremony. We generally don’t go for the opening ceremony,” he said.

“It was literally sad to be in such a situation.”

Prannoy contrasted the experience with the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, held in 2023, where he felt the organisation and accommodation had created a very different experience for athletes.

“In Hangzhou, in 2023, it was mind-blowing to see how China did it. It was probably my best experience. Then, in the next edition, in three or four years, you expect things to be better, but it just went downwards. A lot of them had difficult experiences in terms of accommodation and transport,” he said.

Prannoy was equally critical of the scheduling, which he felt placed an unnecessary burden on players who were already competing across multiple events.

The Indian badminton team had arrived in Aichi-Nagoya with medal hopes across the singles and doubles draws. They leave with a men's team bronze, but without an individual medal for the first time since 2014.

“It was a mediocre event, to be honest,” Prannoy concluded.

- Ends