PV Sindhu at Asian Games 2026: Results and Quarter-Final Exit

Sindhu competed at the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi Prefecture and Nagoya, Japan, where all badminton was played at the Ichinomiya City Municipal Gymnasium. In the team event, India beat Kazakhstan 3-0 in the round of 16 but lost 1-3 to hosts Japan in the quarter-finals on 22 September. Sindhu took the first game against Akane Yamaguchi 23-21 but lost the next two, 21-18 and 21-11. See the full Asian Games 2026 badminton schedule for every India match.

In singles, Sindhu started well with two straight-game wins, trailing 10-11 at the break against Chiu Pin-chian before taking control. Against world No. 4 Chen Yu Fei she won the opening game 21-11, but the Chinese player took the next two games to end India's badminton campaign. Sindhu remains a two-time Asian Games medallist, with team bronze from Incheon 2014 and singles silver from Jakarta 2018, and the individual gold is still missing from her collection.

Read our complete guide to Asian Games 2026 in Nagoya, Japan, check the Asian Games 2026 India schedule, and see where to watch Asian Games 2026 live in India.

Pusarla Venkata Sindhu is the most decorated badminton player India has produced. At 1.79 m she is one of the tallest players on the women's circuit, and she uses that reach for steep smashes, long rallies and sharp cross-court angles. Her career-high world ranking is No. 2, reached in April 2017, and she was ranked No. 10 in August 2026.

What sets her apart is how long she has stayed at the top. Since 2013 she has been winning medals at the biggest events in the sport, and she is only the second woman after China's Zhang Ning to win five or more medals at the World Championships.

PV Sindhu was born on 5 July 1995 in Hyderabad. Both her parents were national-level volleyball players, and her father, PV Ramana, is an Arjuna Award winner. Sindhu chose badminton instead and was playing regularly by the age of eight, first training under Mehboob Ali before joining Pullela Gopichand's academy in Hyderabad.

The results came early. She won the girls' singles gold at the 2011 Commonwealth Youth Games and the 2012 Asian Junior Championships, and in 2013 and 2014 she won bronze at the World Championships while still in her teens.

At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Sindhu won the silver medal in women's singles, losing the final to Spain's Carolina Marin. It was the first Olympic silver for an Indian woman in badminton and made her a household name.

She followed it up at the pandemic-delayed Tokyo 2020 Games. Seeded sixth, she beat Yamaguchi in the quarter-finals, lost the semi-final to Tai Tzu-ying, and then beat China's He Bingjiao in the bronze-medal match. That made her the first Indian woman to win two Olympic medals.

Sindhu lost the 2017 and 2018 World Championships finals, so the silver medals were followed by plenty of talk about her finals record. She answered it in Basel in 2019, where she won the world title and became the first Indian to top the podium at the BWF World Championships.

In 2018 she also reached the Asian Games singles final in Jakarta, the first Indian badminton player to do so. She beat Yamaguchi in the semi-final before losing the final to Tai Tzu-ying. In 2022 she added Commonwealth Games gold in Birmingham.

After a difficult 2025 season and a long injury layoff, Sindhu started 2026 ranked 18th. She reached the Malaysia Open semi-finals in January and then kept building. On 19 July she won the Japan Open in Tokyo, beating three-time world champion Akane Yamaguchi 21-17, 21-17 in the final. It was her first Super 750 title and her first BWF Tour title in almost two years.

She became the first Indian to win the Japan Open, and it was her biggest title since the 2019 World Championships. At the home World Championships in New Delhi in August, she reached the round of 16 before losing 11-21, 21-15, 17-21 to China's Wang Zhiyi in an 87-minute match.

• First Indian woman to win two Olympic medals (Rio 2016 silver, Tokyo 2020 bronze)
• First Indian to win the BWF World Championships title (Basel 2019)
• Five World Championships medals: one gold, two silver and two bronze
• First Indian badminton player to reach an Asian Games singles final (Jakarta 2018)
• First Indian to win the Japan Open (2026)
• Honoured with the Arjuna Award (2013), Padma Shri (2015), Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna (2016) and Padma Bhushan (2020)

Sindhu's career has been defined by big-event medals, and by an ability to come back after tough seasons. She has two Olympic medals, a world title and a fresh Japan Open crown. Her run at the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya ended in the quarter-finals, so an individual Asian Games gold is still the one prize missing.

For her full profile, rankings and competition history, see PV Sindhu on Wikipedia.