On Wednesday, February 4, India began their campaign at the Badminton Asia Team Championships 2026 in Qingdao, China, with a comfortable win over Myanmar.
The defending champions won their opening group fixture as part of Group Y through brilliant performances from Tanvi Sharma, Rakshitha Sree Santhosh Ramraj, and Malvika Bansod in the singles event. Meanwhile, India’s doubles win came from the star pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand and the duo Priya Konjengbam and Shruti Mishra.
In the first singles match, India’s Tanvi Sharma defeated Burmese player Thet Htar Thuzar by sets of 21-13, 21-16 in a 32-minute match. The prolific run continued through Rakshitha in the second singles match, who secured her win over Myanmar’s Eaint Chit Phoo by 21-12, 21-6 to give India the lead at 2-0. Adding the third and final win in the singles event was Malvika, who defeated Myanmar’s Lin Lin Htet by sets of 21-19, 21-12.
Meanwhile, India continued their dominance in the doubles match by winning both of them in straight games. The Indian duo of Priya and Shruti first beat Su Latt and Thet Htar Thuzar by sets of 21-15, 21-16, while Treesa and Gayatri struck over Htet and Phoo to defeat them by 21-8, 21-6.
In the men’s event, India’s former world No. 1 Srikanth Kidambi defeated Malaysia’s Jia Wei Joel Koh in straight sets by 21-15, 21-16. Before that, Ayush Shetty got India its first single win over Singapore’s Jason Teh by sets of 21-17, 21-15. Meanwhile, Lakshya Sen lost the first singles match against Singapore’s Loh Kean Yew.
However, for the men’s doubles pair of Pruthvi Krishnamurthy Roy and Pratheek Sai got a setback from the Malaysian duo of Nge Joo Jie and Donovan Willard WEE, who defeated them by 8-21, 23-21, 22-20. On the other hand, the Indian men’s doubles duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty won their doubles match over the Singaporean pair of Wesley Koh and Junsuke Kubo by 21-10, 21-8.
India had a promising campaign at the 2024 edition of the Badminton Asia Team Championships, in which they defeated Korea in the finals to become the champions. Two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu, who had withdrawn from the event due to injury, has handed over the women’s squad leadership to young stars such as Unnati Hooda, Tanvi, and Malvika.
Having won the opening fixture, India will next face Thailand in their second group match scheduled on Thursday, February 5.
