When the world’s best badminton players walk into the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium on Monday, India will not merely be hosting the World Championships for the second time. Seventeen years after Hyderabad staged the event, the tournament returns to a country where badminton has grown multiple folds — in popularity, participation, elite success and commercial reach.The transformation is visible in the numbers. Forty-three per cent of Indians follow badminton, while 32% actively participate in the sport, making it the country’s second-most played sport and its leading racket sport. At the Paris Olympics, badminton was the most-followed sport among Indian consumers, with 21% saying they would follow it, according to a YouGov poll.In 2009, India was already a passionate badminton nation, but the sport’s footprint today is on an entirely different scale.
From a host to a major badminton market
India now hosts four BWF World Tour tournaments every year, underlining its importance on the international calendar. The India Open alone reached a potential 403 million household viewers across broadcast and digital platforms in 2024.That commercial growth has been accompanied by a much deeper Indian presence at the highest level.India’s first World Championships medal came through Prakash Padukone in 1983. Since 2011, however, an Indian player or pair has won a medal at every edition, creating a remarkable 15-year streak of podium finishes.
From Padukone to Sindhu, Satwik-Chirag
The list of medallists also shows how India’s strength has expanded across generations and disciplines.Saina Nehwal won silver in 2015 and bronze in 2017, while PV Sindhu became India’s biggest World Championships star, winning five medals, including the country’s first and only gold in 2019.Kidambi Srikanth won silver and Lakshya Sen bronze in 2021, HS Prannoy added another men’s singles bronze in 2023, while Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have established India as a force in men’s doubles with medals in 2022 and 2025.The three Olympic medals won by Indian badminton players — Saina’s bronze at London 2012 and Sindhu’s silver at Rio 2016 and bronze at Tokyo 2020 — further underline the country’s rise.And perhaps the biggest sign of the sport’s expanding ecosystem is para-badminton.India now has more than 1,000 athletes in national training programmes and 302 internationally classified players, while Indian para-badminton athletes have won more than 1,200 international medals in the past decade. The country has also collected nine Paralympic badminton medals, including golds at Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024.
A very different India from Hyderabad 2009
The contrast with the last World Championships in India is striking.Hyderabad 2009 was dominated by China, which won four of the five gold medals. Three of the five finals featured players or pairs from the same country, reflecting the concentration of power that characterised the sport at the time.The badminton world has since become considerably more competitive — and India has been an important part of that transformation.Countries such as Japan, Chinese Taipei, Thailand and India have established themselves as regular contenders, while France, Canada and Singapore have also produced major breakthroughs. World champions have emerged from nations that once had little presence at the very top, including Thailand, Spain, Singapore and Malaysia.India, meanwhile, has gone from being represented by individual stars to becoming a multi-discipline medal contender.
New Delhi represents the next chapter
That makes the return of the World Championships to India more than a 17-year homecoming. It is a reflection of how far the sport has travelled in the country since Hyderabad.The numbers tell the story: a massive participation base, a huge fan following, four annual World Tour events, a rapidly expanding commercial footprint and an Indian medal at every World Championships since 2011.There is also a new generation ready to carry that legacy forward.If Hyderabad 2009 showcased India as an enthusiastic host watching the world’s best, New Delhi 2026 arrives with India firmly established as one of badminton’s major global markets and competitive forces.Seventeen years ago, India hosted the World Championships. This time, it hosts them as a badminton powerhouse — and with the opportunity to add another chapter to a remarkable rise.
