Asian Games 2023: What India's badminton performance spells ahead of the Paris Olympics
India had a strong showing in badminton at the Asian Games 2023, with shuttlers returning home with one medal of each color. This medal haul is India's best performance yet at the games in terms of badminton, and it marked India's first gold in the sport.
With the 2024 Paris Olympics drawing closer, many fans will be reading into India's performance at the Asiad as a way to measure the possibilities of a fourth consecutive Olympic badminton medal for India.
As of now, only men's singles players HS Prannoy and Lakshya Sen, and men's doubles duo Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty are named in the top ten of the BWF Race to Paris rankings.
However, Olympic quotas will be awarded to the top 35 players in singles and top 48 pairs in doubles (with certain exceptions). Given this, PV Sindhu and women's doubles pair Treesa Jolly/Gayathri Gopichand are likely to make the cut.
Going into Paris, this is the first time in quite a while that India holds a genuine chance to win a medal at the men's singles event. While Lakshya didn't manage to make the cut for the individual event of the Asian Games, HS Prannoy certainly put on quite the show.
Despite battling a back injury, the 31-year-old made it to the podium to clinch a bronze. However, the Asian Games did miss two big European names, Viktor Axelsen and Anders Antonsen, who pose a massive threat in the men's singles event.
Given Prannoy's recent form, including finishing with a bronze at the BWF World Championships, he has certainly proven he has the skills required to win a medal in Paris.
Meanwhile, men's doubles pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty are India's brightest hopes for a top of the podium finish at the 2024 games. The duo have been on quite the roll recently, and their Asian Games gold is proof of that. With this win, the pair will also become the first Indians to rise to the number one spot in any BWF doubles rankings.
Rankireddy and Shetty showed unbelievable aggression and conviction in their time at Hangzhou, and a continuation of this might very well result in India's first badminton gold at the Olympics.
Asian Games 2023: PV Sindhu fails to deliver
Indian badminton star, ex-World Championships gold medalist and two-time Olympic medalist, failed to deliver at the Asian Games.
The Hyderabadi has dealt with a dip in form ever since she made a comeback to the court in the beginning of the year after an injury at the end of 2022. However, Sindhu has a reputation as a big games player, and fans had hoped to see a turnaround in her at Hangzhou.
While she did make it to the quarter-finals of the individual event at the Asian Games, she ended up conceding the match in straight games to China's He Bing Jiao, in a performance that lacked hints of the Sindhu that stormed to the finals in 2018 Jakarta.
Given that she is still India's highest-ranked women's singles player, it is very likely that she will secure herself an Olympic quota. However, if she is unable to regain her footing on the court ahead of Paris, a third consecutive Olympic medal looks out of reach for her at the moment.