Indian badminton is faced with some challenging questions at the start of 2025, barely a month since the start of the new season.
Earlier this month, an almost full-strength India was knocked out of an underpowered Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championship in the quarterfinals. And at the India Open Super 750 - the biggest tournament at home - in January, the Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty pairing were the only Indians to make the semifinals.
Both are, without doubt, troubling results that should be questioned. But there's an even bigger problem for Indian badminton -- an alarming, and increasingly visible, lack of depth and bench strength.
At the BAMTC in Qingdao, China, India lost 3-0 in the five-match quarterfinal to Japan a day after losing 3-2 to South Korea in the group stage. Neither opponent was anywhere near full strength. Indeed, no country sent their top players to this competition.
India, on the other hand, had selected the No 1 players in all disciplines and had held a special training camp for it in Guwahati (Before PV Sindhu felt an injury and pulled out.) Sure, not all top-ranked Indians played all three ties, with the men's singles and doubles being rotated to give everyone a shot. Satwik and Chirag did not play together, and all three men's singles played competed in one match each. But that does not take away from the fact that India under-performed. Big time.
The results show the vast gap between the top tier and the rest. As do the rankings:
Badminton is a core sport for India, a medal hope at the biggest events. And it has delivered so far: since 2012, Indian players have won three Olympic medals, a spate of World Championship medals and more at the Asian and Commonwealth Games. All that success, however, is due largely to one generation of players.
It's the start of another Olympic cycle and, as that generation fades away, there are no signs of the next generation taking its place.
Last week's mixed team championship was a reminder of why. To win a team competition, having a couple of big players is not enough - you need a competent bench. India's first ever Thomas Cup win in 2022 was monumental because, for the first time, the team had 3 singles players performing consistently at the elite level at the same time. Lakshya Sen, Kidambi Srikanth and HS Prannoy propelled each other, building around Satwik-Chirag.
Two and half years later, all these players are still around but lacking any consistency. For Srikanth and Prannoy - both in their early 30s now - the wear and tear of age is reasonable. Lakshya's inconsistency is a separate (and longer) discussion. There are 20-somethings making their way - reserve Kiran George was India's best performer in singles at the India Open and Priyanshu Rajawat has been making main draws consistently.
They may be not near the levels of the first line players, but atleast there is a level of bench strength in men's singles. Elsewhere, things are in dire straits.
In women's singles, the gulf between Sindhu and the rest of India's women's singles field has been vast for a while now. When Sindhu came into her own as a teenager, Saina Nehwal was already an Olympic medalist. Sindhu took up the torch and raised it to newer, unprecedented heights. Sadly, there's been no one for her to pass it on to.
The 20-somethings, including Malvika Bansod, Aakarshi Kashyap and Ashmita Chaliha, have made no significant progress on the BWF World Tour yet. The teenagers - Anupama Upadhyaya, Unnati Hooda, Anmol Kharb and Tanvi Sharma - are in the caterpillar stage of development.
This is not to say there is no potential - after all the Indian women's team won the Badminton Asia Team Championship exactly a year ago. Bookended by the performances of Sindhu and Anmol (then 14), India beat Thailand in the final to win that historic gold.
Take Thailand as an example, though. Back then, they were without Ratchanok Intanon (of similar age and career trajectory to Sindhu). Like Sindhu, she also suffered injury setbacks and had to work her way back, but while she did that, other Thai players surpassed her in the rankings. Today, there are 4 Thai women in the Top 10, the most from any country. And Ratchanok is the Thai No 3. Hard to imagine that happening in India, where Sindhu has been India No 1 for nearly a decade now.
To fix this specific issue, the BAI appointed Irwansyah Adi Pratama as the women's singles coach this year, making Sindhu part of this training group instead of having a personal coach. How this will actually work, though, is yet to be seen.
Outside the singles, it's even worse. Now, to win a mixed team competition, a team requires three (good) doubles pairings. The very doubles that are so often ignored in India, unless your name is Satwik-Chirag.
Consider this: At the BAMTC, Satwik and Chirag did not play together for the purpose of rest (and perhaps some experimentation) and instead teamed with MR Arjun in turn. Arjun, ranked 82 in the world, has not often played at the level at which the former world No 1s operate; indeed, no other men's doubles player has. This gap was bound to show in competition... and it did. But there were, quite literally, no other options.
(The question remains, though, why Satwik-Chirag were made to travel all the way if not to play together when this time could have been used as a training block ahead of next month's All England Open.)
Women's doubles is the only discipline where there is some level of internal competition. despite Ashwini-Tanisha's recent run of poor form. The sparks of hope from Treesa and Gayatri have reignited, as they won both their matches in China and have slowly been regaining their lost momentum after the heartbreak of missing out on the Olympics.
These 21-year-olds are still young and have built a solid block of experience but should now be capitalising on their Top 10 wins and taking the next step - reaching big finals.
Mixed doubles in India remains a curious case, where despite no pair making an impression yet, there are good participation numbers and an increasing number of pairings on the BWF Tour. Four Indians are ranked between the bracket of WR 30 to 40, and this means they are knocking on major main draws regularly. However, XD success on the higher levels is non-existent and this is one area where systemic investment also seems limited as of now.
The question of bench strength is an old one for Indian badminton, but 2025 is the season to take a hard look and find answers. In a year without a major multi-sport competition, there are windows of time and opportunity to work on this. More importantly, given the age of most of India's top singles players, this is a pressing need with an eye on the next Olympics.
For a core sport, badminton's 2028 prospects look weak. Paris 2024, where India's three-Olympic medal streak ended, may not just be an aberration. For it should be a reminder that badminton's bench strength problem has to be solved soon to rejuvenate the sport in India.