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

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.

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 20142014 - No individual medal2018 - PV Sindhu - silver, Saina Nehwal - bronze2022 - HS Prannoy - bronze2026 - 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.