New Delhi has been chosen as the host city of the next Badminton World Championships in August 2026, the sport’s global governing body BWF announced on Monday.
The Badminton World Federation’s (BWF) most prestigious tournament will return to India after 17 years, with Hyderabad hosting it first way back in 2009.
The announcement was made during the closing ceremony of the 2025 championships in Paris, where a handover took place between BWF president Khunying Patama Leeswadtrakul, Frank Laurent, chief of the Federation Francaise de Badminton, and general secretary of Badminton Association of India Sanjay Mishra, who promised that the country will carry forward the standards of “excellence and grandeur” that Paris has showcased.
“We assure that India will give nothing less than 100 per cent to uphold and carry forward the same standards of excellence and grandeur that Paris has showcased. We look forward to welcoming the badminton family to Delhi,” Mishra was quoted as saying in a BAI release.
The Delhi edition will also mark the tournament’s return to Asia after four years, with Nanjing in China hosting it in 2018.
“For India, hosting the Championships again highlights its standing as both a powerhouse on court and a major destination on the global badminton map,” the BAI added.
The country’s breakthrough came with Prakash Padukone’s bronze in Copenhagen, while in 2011 Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponappa became the first Indian doubles medallists, signalling the nation’s all-round rise.
At the forefront stands PV Sindhu, one of the most successful women’s singles players in the tournament’s history, with five medals: a gold, two silvers, and two bronzes.
Furthermore, India’s medal streak has continued unbroken since 2011, most recently extended by Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty’s bronze in Paris 2025, their second at the event.
A decade after India first hosted the BWF World Championships in Hyderabad in 2009, Sindhu swept past Nozomi Okuhara in Basel in 2019 to become India’s first-ever gold medallist at the World Championships.
During that period, Saina Nehwal also contributed two medals — a silver in 2015 and a bronze in 2017, the latter marking the first time India had two women share the podium (with Sindhu’s silver in 2017).
Their combined success has made women’s singles by far the strongest category for India on the world stage, contributing a total of seven medals to the country’s overall haul.
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Indian men have also delivered in recent editions. Kidambi Srikanth (silver, 2021), B Sai Praneeth (bronze, 2019), Lakshya Sen (bronze, 2021), and HS Prannoy (bronze, 2023) have all stood on the podium in singles.
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