Indian badminton star PV Sindhu cruised into the semi-finals of the women's singles at the French Open 2021. She defeated Thailand's Busanan Ongbamrungphan 21-14, 21-14 on Friday.

The two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu will face off world No. 15 Sayaka Takahashi of Japan for a place in the final on Saturday.

In the quarterfinal challenge against world No. 13 Busanan Ongbamrungphan, Sindhu has taken over in just 16 minutes and placed in the third position.

Also read: Denmark Open: PV Sindhu Enters Quarter-Finals After A Tough Win

And although the Thai upped her challenge in the second game, Sindhu came back powerfully to wrap up the match in 38 minutes.

Tokyo Olympians and world No. 10 partner Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy lost their quarter-final contest against Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia.

The fifth-seeded Indian duo put up a spirited performance against the fourth seeds and even won the first game. But the Malaysians fought back in the next two to win the match 21-18, 18-21, 17-21.

India's lone remaining representative in the men's singles, Lakshya Sen's campaign ended in the quarter-finals too. He went down 21-17, 21-15 to Heo Kwanghee of South Korea.

India's Dhruv Kapila and Tanisha Crasto defeated People's Republic of China's Gao Jia Xuan and Wu Meng Ying in straight games to enter the semi-finals of the German Open 2025 badminton tournament on Friday.

Paris Olympics 2024 star Tanisha Crasto and her mixed doubles partner Dhruv Kapila produced a brilliant performance to defeat the Chinese pair 21-14, 21-17 in just 30 minutes.

Also Read: India’s Legacy in Badminton: From Prakash Padukone to the New Generation of Champions

Kapil-Crasto only Indian left in the tournament 

Kapila and Crasto have kept India's hopes alive at the German Open 2025, all eyes will be on their semi-final clash as they aim to make the final.

They will now take on Indonesia's Rehan Naufal Kusharjanto and Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja in the semi-finals.

Indian pair took the first game

Kapila and Crasto made a great start and took an 11-2 lead in the opening game. 

Although Gao and Wu made a brief comeback to reduce the lead to 13-10, the Indian pair quickly established their dominance to take the first game.

The second game proved to be a tough match, with the Chinese pair putting up strong resistance. 

However, Kapila and Crasto held their nerve to win and book a place in the semi-finals.

Unnati Hooda lost

Meanwhile, in the men's singles, India's Tharun Mannepalli, ranked 59th in the world, crashed out of the German Open 2025 tournament after losing a tough match 16-21, 21-17, 21-8 to third seed Toma Popov of France.

In the women's singles category, world number 64 Unnati Hooda suffered defeat after a marathon battle against 41st ranked Riko Gunji of Japan. 

Hooda won the first game 21-15 but lost match points in the next two games and eventually lost 15-21, 25-23, 24-22.

India's Rakshitha Sree Ramraj and Tasnim Mir also bowed out after losing in the women's singles category. 

Ramraj lost 12-21, 12-21 against fourth seed Mia Blichfeldt of Denmark, while Mir retired against Thuy Linh Nguyen of Vietnam.

Mir was trailing 19-21, 21-12, 0-7 before losing the match.

Badminton, in recent years, has seen an unprecedented rise in popularity in India, primarily sparked by the emergence of global superstars like PV Sindhu, Lakshya Sen, Satwiksairaj Renkireddy and others.

But India’s connection with the game of badminton goes back a lot further, even to the ancient times.

In fact, India played a major role in badminton emerging as a sport of global renown.

Here, we take a look at India's legacy in badminton and how the sub-continent shaped the sport as we know it today.

Indian Badminton | Historical Overview 

The exact origins of badminton, till date, remain obscure but there have been references of games involving shuttlecocks and rackets in historic records of ancient India, China and Greece.

The mentions dated back almost 2000 years.

In medieval Europe, a children’s game called battledore and shuttlecock, in which players used a paddle (battledore) to keep a small-feathered shuttlecock in the air as long as possible, was also popular.

Jeu de Volant was another similar game played by European aristocrats in the 17th century.

The transformation of the past-time racket sport to becoming a globally-recognised sporting discipline, however, started from India.

British army officers got introduced to the indigenous version of the game, played for centuries, while stationed in India around the 1860s.

They made their own adaptations to the sport, primarily adding the net and called it Poona or Poonah, after the town (Pune) the garrison was based in.

The first informal set of badminton rules for the game were formed in India by the British colonists in 1867.

Interestingly, ball badminton – another variation of the game involving woollen balls instead of shuttlecocks - was popular in southern parts of India.

The British soldiers in India took inspiration from that as well and used balls rather than shuttlecocks while playing the game in windy or wet conditions.

Soldiers returning from India took the game back to England and soon enough, it caught the attention of the erstwhile Duke of Beaufort.

In 1873, the Duke introduced the game to his guests at a lawn-party held at his estate in Gloucestershire.

The Duke called it ‘the Badminton game’ after the name of his estate – the Badminton House.

The name stuck, and thus sport became badminton.

BAI established in 1899

Badminton’s popularity surged rapidly and it progressed from being a recreational garden activity to becoming a game popular at clubs.

The Bath Badminton Club, the first dedicated badminton club, was formed in 1877 and ten years later, the club rewrote the informal rules coined in India.

The Bath Badminton Club rules established the framework for modern-day badminton.

The Badminton Association of India (BAI) was established in 1899, six years after the Badminton Association of England (BAE).

It is one of the oldest badminton governing bodies in the world.

IBF established in 1934

The International Badminton Federation (IBF) was established in 1934 as the world governing body for the sport.

It was later renamed to Badminton World Federation (BWF). India joined the group in 1936.

Badminton became a part of the Summer Olympics at the Barcelona 1992 Games with men’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s singles and women’s doubles events added to the roster.

In 1996, mixed doubles was added to the list.

First male shuttlers to represent India at Olympics

Deepankar Bhattacharya and U Vimal Kumar were the first male shuttlers to represent India at the Olympic Games in Barcelona 1992.

Madhumita Bisht was India’s sole women representative at the event.

Badminton in India also latched on to the trend of franchisee-based sporting leagues with the Premier Badminton League (PBL), which started in 2016.

India’s Legacy in Badminton | Iconic players over the years

Every sport in India has its own set of heroes and badminton is no different. These shuttlers were key in putting their country on the global badminton map.

Prakash Padukone

Prakash Padukone was probably the first superstar in the history of badminton in India.

Padukone was the first Indian to win the prestigious All England Open Badminton Championships in 1980 and reach No. 1 in the men’s badminton world rankings.

He was also India’s first Commonwealth Games gold medallist in badminton, winning the men’s singles event in 1978.

The ace shuttler also holds several other accolades, including a bronze at the 1983 World Badminton Championships and a gold in the 1981 World Cup in Singapore.

Pullela Gopichand

Mentored by Prakash Padukone, Pullela Gopichand took over his teacher’s mantle in the 90s and early 2000s.

Gopichand won the All England in 2001 and etched his name in Indian history of badminton. 

Like Prakash Padukone did for him, Pullela Gopichand, too, dedicated himself to moulding the next generation of Indian badminton’s torch bearers.

Saina Nehwal

One of Pullela Gopichand’s star pupils, Saina Nehwal is India’s first-ever Olympic medallist in badminton.

Nehwal won the bronze in the London 2012 Olympics women’s singles event.

She is also the only Indian woman to be ranked No. 1 in the world, reaching the summit in 2015.

PV Sindhu

Five years younger than Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu has taken world badminton by storm and went a step higher on the podium after Nehwal’s bronze with a women’s singles silver at the Rio 2016 Games.

In 2019, she became the first Indian-ever to win a gold medal at the BWF World Championships.

PV Sindhu also became the first Indian woman to win two medals at the Olympics after she bagged a bronze at Tokyo 2020.

PV Sindhu has been extremely consistent at the World Championships and has also won two silvers and two bronze medals in the tournament in addition to the landmark gold.

Like Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu has also been mentored by Pullela Gopichand.

Kidambi Srikanth

Kidambi Srikanth has been the top men’s badminton player in India since Pullela Gopichand retired.

Srikanth has six BWF Superseries and three BWF Grand Prix victories under his belt and was ranked the No. 1 men’s player in the world in 2018.

He’s the only Indian men’s shuttler since Prakash Padukone to be ranked top.

In 2021, Kidambi Srikanth became the first Indian man to win a silver medal at the badminton world championships.

He was also a member of the historic Thomas Cup-winning Indian badminton team in 2022.

Lakshya Sen

Lakshya Sen’s rapid rise in the world of badminton has been nothing short of meteoric.

From being a kid who was competing at the junior level not too long ago, Lakshya Sen has now beaten the legends of the sport and won medals at the highest level, emerging as the poster boy of Indian badminton.

In 2021, Lakshya Sen started reaching the business end of major tournaments consistently and challenged the biggest names on the circuit.

Lakshya became the fourth Indian man to win a badminton world championship medal (bronze).

He also won gold medal at Commonwealth Games 2022 and silver at All England Open.

At the Paris 2024 Olympics, Lakshya Sen made history by becoming the first Indian to make the men's singles semi-finals at the Summer Games.

Lakshya would eventually miss out on a medal in Paris after losing to Lee Zii Jia in the bronze playoff.

Apart from these, Chirag Shetty-Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, Parupalli Kashyap, HS Prannoy are some other notable names.

Ironic as it sounds, the performance dynamics of Indian badminton have changed dramatically in the past decade, but the quantum of joy gained by the lovers of the sport in the country is more or less the same. 

From the days of meagre Indian presence in singles and almost making a token appearance in doubles, the sport has moved to the other end of the scale.

India has given the world plenty of badminton superstar in the last decade and continues to do so.

While perennial stars like PV Sindhu, Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy continue to shine, the younger generation has also begun to make waves on the global stage.

Let's take a look at India’s Next Badminton Superstar who can potentially carry the torch forward.

India’s Next Badminton Superstar

Anupama Upadhyaya 

At just 19, Anupama Upadhyaya has been making waves on the international circuit. 

She clinched titles at the Polish Open and Kazakhstan International Challenge last year and stunned the then-world No. 15 Beiwen Zhang at the China Masters. 

The young shuttler is a former Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Junior Number 1 player. 

She also clinched the Indian National Badminton Champion in 2023 in women’s singles, and represented India at the Asian Games 2023. 

She is ranked career best 42 among the senior players globally, according to BWF. 

Anupama’s eyes are now focussed on to play at the 2026 Commonwealth Games and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Rakshitha Ramraj

Rakshitha Ramraj is a promising singles player from Tamil Nadu who has been climbing the international ranking chart quite steadily in the last one year. 

The 17-year-old, who stands out with her height and built on the domestic circuit, clinched her first international title by winning the Slovenia Open and then added the CM Trophy International Challenge in Raipur gold medal to that tally.

In 2024, she also reached the finals of the Telangana International Challenge in Hyderabad and St Denis Reunion Open and went on to reach the quarter-finals of the senior nationals in Bengaluru.

Priyanshu Rajawat

Priyanshu Rajawat is an Indian badminton player. He was part of the Indian team that won the 2022 Thomas Cup.

The Indian shuttler has the highest World rank of 34. 

The teenage sensation has won the 2019 Bahrain International, 2021 Ukraine International, 2021 India International Challenge and 2022 India Chattisgarh International Challenge.

Additionally, the shuttler was runner-up in the 2022 Bangladesh International.

Anmol Kharb

Haryana shuttler Anmol Kharb is already justifying her name on the Indian badminton landscape.

Anmol Kharb became the women’s singles national badminton champion at the age of 16 and a year later, proved to be the driving force behind the Indian women’s team bagging a historic gold medal at the 2024 Badminton Asia Team Championships in Malaysia.

In 2019, at the age of 12, Anmol won the U-17 All India Ranking title in Hyderabad, her first national-level title. 

She also made the semi-finals of the Senior All India Ranking tournament in Visakhapatnam that year and got picked for the government of India’s Khelo India scheme, which provides assistance to budding athletes.

Anmol moved up a gear in 2020, winning the under-17 national titles in both singles and doubles, for which she partnered up with Vennala K.

It was in 2023 that Anmol Kharb shot into the limelight. At the senior nationals held in Guwahati, the youngster outplayed Tanvi Khanna to pocket her first senior national title, at age 16.

In the semis, the Saina Nehwal fan accounted for her senior compatriot Ashmita Chaliha, a regular on the BWF World Tour.

Malvika Bansod

In her early 20s, Malvika Bansod made headlines after winning the silver medal at the 2022 Syed Modi International tournament. That, too, in her debut season on the BWF World Tour.

In 2019, Malvika Bansod won her debut senior tournament - Maldives International – and followed it with another top finish at Annapurna Nepal International Series.

In the next two years, the youngster steadily climbed up the ladder with wins at the Uganda International and Lithuanian International.

Malvika was picked in India’s squad for the Sudirman Cup and Uber Cup in 2021.

Malvika, though, broke the drought in February 2024 after she claimed the women's singles title at the Azerbaijan International badminton tournament.

On the way, she defeated compatriots Anupama Upadhyaya in the semis and Tanya Hemanth in the final.

In September, she defeated an Olympic bronze medallist for the second time in her career.

At the China Open, she stunned Paris 2024 bronze winner Gregoria Mariska Tunjung of Indonesia in a hard-fought straight games.

Two months later she made the final of the Hylo Open 2024 in Germany but lost to Denmark's Mia Blichfeldt.

However, reaching the summit clash made Malvika only the third Indian women's singles player after Saina and Sindhu to reach the final of a BWF World Tour tournament outside India.

Over the years, Malvika Bansod has proven she possesses all the tools to scale greater heights in the future for India.

India's badminton pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Setty lost to South Korea's Seo Seung-jae and Kim Won-ho 10-21, 15-21 in the semi-finals of the Malaysia Open Badminton Tournament in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.

Also Read: Indian Badminton players struggle with the slow court: Here is why

The Indian duo of Satwik and Chirag were the only seeded pair in the Malaysia Open tournament and with this defeat, India's challenge ended in the tournament.

Trailing 6-11 in opening game

Last time's runners-up started slowly, trailing 6-11 in the opening game. The Koreans capitalised on their strong start to win the first game 21-10 in just 19 minutes.

The seventh-seeded Indian duo recovered in the second game, leading 11-8 at the halfway point. However, the advantage was short-lived as it eventually lost 15-21.

The pair will next compete in the Yonex Sunrise India Open, starting January 14, where the two will face Malaysia’s Wei Chong Man and Kai Wun Tee in the Round of 32.s

First Super 1000 event of the year 

In the quarterfinals, SatChi battled for 49 minutes to secure a 26-24, 21-15 win over the Malaysian duo of Yew Sin Ong and Ee Yi Teo. The semifinal run this week is one step short of their performance in Malaysia last year, where they had reached the final.

This was the first Super 1000 event of the year and unsurprisingly, Satwik and Chirag were the last Indians standing. Attention now shifts to the India Open Super 750 that starts on Tuesday.

World Athletics has earlier announced that athletes should wear shoes with a uniform 20-millimeter sole thickness limit for all events. This rule will come into action on November 1st, 2024, marking a notable change in the actions of the athletes.

This rule has been induced to welcome fairness in the game. However, this has sparked controversies. While many athletes have accepted it, some are still in dilemmas about the rule.

Well, let's look at how the rule will impact the performance. However, for now, let's look at the present thickness.

Current Shoe Sole Thickness Rules in Athletics

Presently, there is no such uniformity of sole thickness. Thickness normally varies according to the events in which the athletes participate.

Suppose, in events where an athlete will have run more than 800 meters, shoes are allowed to have a sole up to 25 mm. However, when it comes to shorter distances, the maximum thickness has been limited to 20 mm.

For field events, including the high jump, athletes have a 20mm limit. But for the triple jump, athletes are allowed to wear shoes with soles up to 25mm.

These rules were implemented in January 2022, based on the technological advancements in shoes. However, from 1st November this year, there will be no distinction in sole thickness in different events.

Point to be noted: the rules for road events like marathons and race walks, which permit a 40mm sole thickness, will remain unchanged.

Why is World Athletics enforcing a 20mm sole limit?

The main motto of World Athletics is to ensure fairness. As a result of this, the federation has decided to apply the rule of a uniform 20mm limit to the sole.

In recent years, advances in shoe technology—particularly with thicker soles and carbon fiber plates—have sparked debates about whether these shoes offer athletes some unfair advantage.

Thus, World Athletics created its own Working Group on Athletic Shoes in 2020. The main task of this group is to analyze the impact of shoe technology on performance. They also draft regulations, ensuring that athletes are focusing more on skills and not technology.

The new rule was announced well in advance to give shoe manufacturers ample time to adapt their designs.

Athletes' Reactions to the 20mm Rule Change

Top athletes have had mixed reactions to the upcoming rule. Joshua Cheptegei, the Olympic and World Champion in the 10,000 meters, supports the change, describing it as "for the benefit of the sport."

He added that the thinner soles won’t necessarily lead to slower times, emphasizing that performance is often influenced by an athlete's mindset. Cheptegei also noted that recent shoe technology has aided recovery between training sessions, which could be impacted by the new regulations.

Meanwhile, Muktar Edris, a former two-time 5,000m World Champion, said that a thicker sole helps the athletes, providing them extra "energy" and "push." A reduced sole may hamper a regular action.

The Controversy Surrounding Shoe Technology

The controversy regarding shoe technology is nothing new. Before 2022, the track spikes had soles with thicknesses up to 30 mm.

During the Tokyo Olympics, legendary sprinter Usain Bolt brought this issue to the public, citing the unfair advantage an athlete may receive due to thicker boots. Not only that, but with the increased use of technologically advanced shoes, world records that looked unbreakable are at stake.

Karsten Warholm, the one who holds the World Record in 400m hurdles, also expressed his concern. After winning the gold medal in the Tokyo Olympics, he questioned the boots of the runner-up, Rai Benjamin.

Warholm made serious claims that Benjamin used thicker Nike soles that provided the later an unfair advantage. Warholm's remarks not only concerned the federation but drew attention to the fine line between technological innovation and "technological doping."

The Impact of Shoe Technology on Performance

Eliud Kipchoge, the first athlete who broke the two-hour marathon barrier in 2019, sparked controversies at his time as well. He used the Nike Alphafly, which featured thick soles and carbon plates. However, the nature of the event didn't let that record count. 

Later, World Athletics introduced a rule. It required the new shoes to be in the open market for at least four months prior to the competition. This rule also aspired to thwart athletes with exclusive shoe deals from gaining an unfair advantage.

Will the 20mm sole limit affect athlete performance?

It is not exactly negative, but the athletes will solely depend on their physical abilities and techniques. Yes, a few athletes do consider this to hurt their performance, but just like Cheptegei mentioned, mental resilience and training will play a crucial role in breaking records or achieving personal bests (PB).

Well, a reduced cushion in the sole will demand more energy from the athlete. Thus, athletes need to adjust their training regimes to adapt to the new rules.

World Athletics had mentioned clearly that they want to promote uniformity. They want the athletes to rely on their power and skills, not some technology beneath their feet, that will change and evolve with time. 

However, with shoe manufacturers rushing to adapt their designs, the real test will come when athletes compete under the new regulations in 2024.