After Paris put up another spectacular week of high-quality badminton for the 2025 BWF World Championships at the Adidas Arena – one year after the venue hosted the Olympic Games – the handover took place for the next edition on Sunday with New Delhi confirmed as the hosts. India last hosted the BWF World Championships in Hyderabad in 2009. More recently, India have been able to invite some of the biggest names of world badminton after the India Open was upgraded to Super 750 status.
At the end of the five finals on Sunday, immediately after the medal ceremony for men’s doubles, where Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty stood on the podium for their bronze, the official handover took place between BWF President Khunying Patama Leeswadtrakul, President of the Federation Francaise de Badminton Frank Laurent, and Sanjay Mishra, Badminton Association of India’s General Secretary.
“On behalf of the Badminton Association of India, I extend my heartfelt gratitude to the BWF for entrusting us with the honour of hosting the World Championships in Delhi in August 2026. We assure that India will give nothing less than 100% to uphold and carry forward the same standards of excellence and grandeur that Paris has showcased. We look forward to welcoming the badminton family to Delhi,” Mishra said in a statement.
India would be hoping to continue their medal streak at the World Championships that began back in 2011, and kept alive by Satwik-Chirag’s impressive run in Paris, during which they beat two world-class pairs in Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang.
BWF President Khunying Patama Leeswadtrakul, President of the Federation Francaise de Badminton Frank Laurent, and Sanjay Mishra, Badminton Association of India’s General Secretary. (Photo credit: Badminton photo)
After Prakash Padukone’s bronze medal in 1983, India had to endure a long wait for a medal at the World Championships that finally ended in 2011 thanks to Ashwini Ponnappa and Jwala Gutta. In 2013, a teenage PV Sindhu would win the first of her five medals at the marquee event when she bagged bronze. She’d repeat the feat a year later.
In 2015, Saina Nehwal made history by becoming the first Indian to reach a final, winning a silver medal. The 2017 edition in Glasgow was especially memorable as Saina won bronze and Sindhu lost arguably one of the greatest badminton finals of all time against Nozomi Okuhara to clinch her first silver; it was the first time India had two medals at one edition.
In 2018, Sindhu would again come close to that elusive gold, as she won a second silver. That wait would come to an end in some style at Basel 2019 as she thrashed Okuhara in a repeat of the 2017 final to become the first-ever badminton world champion from India. In men’s singles, B Sai Praneeth won bronze that year in Basel too. In 2021, another slice of badminton history for India was made by Srikanth Kidambi (the first male shuttler to reach the final) as he won silver, and Lakshya Sen clinched bronze. In 2022, Satwik-Chirag won their first medal bronze in Tokyo to become the first Indian men’s doubles medallists at the event, while HS Prannoy had a memorable run at Copenhagen 2023, as he beat Viktror Axelsen en route to a fine bronze.
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On Sunday, Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi claimed her third world title and China’s Shi Yuqi earned his maiden crown as they triumphed in the women’s and men’s singles finals.
Shi, the 29-year-old top seed and runner-up in 2018, beat defending champion Kunlavut Vitidsarn of Thailand 19-21 21-10 21-18 in a tense final lasting one hour 17 minutes. It marked the end of a decade long wait for China to witness a men’s singles champion after Chen Long’s gold in 2015.
Yamaguchi, 28, who previously won in 2021 and 2022, eased past Chen Yufei of China 21-9 21-13 in 37 minutes to become only the second woman after Spain’s Carolina Marin to lift three world singles crowns. Chen, 27, earned her fifth medal at the championships, adding a second silver to her three bronzes. She also lost the 2022 worlds final to Yamaguchi in Tokyo.
Chen, playing with heavy strapping on her right ankle after an injury in her semi-final win over Olympic champion An Se-young, struggled to match Yamaguchi’s pace and precision. She said she took painkillers before the match.
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Malaysia’s Chen Tang Jie and Toh Ee Wei, seeded fourth, powered past China’s second seeds Jiang Zhenbang and Wei Yaxin 21-15 21-14 to secure Malaysia’s first mixed doubles world title on their country’s Independence Day. China struck back in the women’s doubles, where top-ranked Tan Ning and Liu Shengshu overcame Malaysia’s Pearly Tan and Thinaah Muralitharan 21-14 20-22 21-17 in one hour and 23 minutes, in what was the match of the day. In the men’s doubles final, top seeds from South Korea Seo Seung-jae and Kim Won-ho proved too strong for China’s Liu Yuchen and Chen Boyang – the duo who ended Satwik-Chirag’s run – lifting the title with a 21-17 21-12 victory.
