Indian Badminton 2025: Sen’s trophy, Satwik-Chirag’s medal… Indian shuttlers’ explosive innings

New Delhi. The year 2025 has been a rollercoaster ride for Indian badminton with many key players struggling to find form, but a title from Lakshya Sen, medals at the World Championships for Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty and the impressive progress of young players have raised a ray of hope. Indian players also had to face fitness related problems this year, which also affected their performance.

The most important individual achievement of Indian players this season was Sen’s title win in the Australian Open Super 500 badminton tournament. Sen won his first Super 500 title since the Canada Open in 2023 and his first title since winning the Syed Modi International Super 300 in December last year. He was the runner-up in the Hong Kong Open.

Satwik and Chirag re-established their position as India’s leading doubles pair despite battling injury and illness early in the season. The pair won a bronze medal at the World Championships in Paris, made the finals of the Hong Kong Open and China Masters and ended the year on a positive note by becoming the first Indian men’s doubles pair to reach the knockout stage of the BWF World Tour Finals. Kidambi Srikanth showed glimpses of a comeback this season but could not win any trophy.
Finishing runner-up at the Malaysia Masters and Syed Modi International reminded him of the old days but could not end his long-running title drought. Gayatri Gopichand and Trisa Jolly successfully defended the women’s doubles title at the Syed Modi International tournament.

The most encouraging signs in Indian badminton in the year 2025 came from the young generation. 20-year-old Ayush Shetty won the US Open Super 300 and has been a consistent presence at BWF World Tour events. He also recorded notable wins over Japan’s Kodai Naraoka, former world champion Loh Kien Yu, Chinese Taipei’s Chou Tien Chen and Canada’s Brian Yang, showing his impressive progress. Sixteen-year-old Tanvi Sharma caught everyone’s attention by winning a silver medal in the girls’ singles category at the World Junior Championships.

She also reached the final of the US Open and achieved one of the most impressive wins of the season by defeating former world number one Nojomi Okuhara at the Syed Modi International. Tanvi finished the year by finishing runner-up at the Guwahati Masters. Unnati Hooda played an important role in India winning the bronze medal in the World Junior Team Championships. She reached 23rd place in the world rankings by winning the Odisha Masters Super 100 title.
Her win over PV Sindhu at the China Masters caught everyone’s attention. Sanskar Saraswat won his first Super 100 title at the Guwahati Masters. However, the year 2025 proved to be largely disappointing for the senior players of India. Two-time Olympic medalist Sindhu reached the quarterfinals three times, but lost six times in the first round and four times in the second round.

A hamstring problem disrupted his campaign at the start of the year, before a foot injury forced him to withdraw from all BWF competitions after October. This season was even more difficult for 2023 World Championship bronze medalist HS Prannoy. Injuries severely affected his performance.

An ankle injury at the India Open in January and a rib muscle injury at the Korea Open in September prevented him from practicing regularly, resulting in nine second-round exits and eight first-round exits. India also performed disappointingly in the team competitions. India’s performance in the Asian Mixed Team Championship and Sudirman Cup was not good.