India women beaten 1-3 by Japan in Asian Games 2026 quarter-finals
India’s women’s badminton team were eliminated from the Asian Games 2026 on Tuesday after losing 1-3 to defending champions Japan at the Ichinomiya City Municipal Gymnasium in the quarter-finals.
The defeat prolongs India’s wait for a team medal at the Asian Games by another four years; their last podium finish in the event came in 2014 at Incheon, where they shared bronze with Japan. Though the tie finished 1-3, India claimed two of the five singles games and saw their doubles pairing win in straight games, underscoring a closer contest than the scoreline alone suggests. Japan advanced to the semi-finals and will face An Se Young’s South Korea, which reached the last four after beating Malaysia 3-1 in its quarter-final.
All three Indian singles players faced opponents ranked above them. PV Sindhu, described in the report as once the world No. 1 but outside the top 10 these days, lost to World No. 3 Akane Yamaguchi 23-21, 18-21, 6-21. Unnati Hooda was defeated 16-21, 18-21 by World No. 7 Tomoka Miyazaki, the 2022 world junior champion, and Tanvi Sharma fell 12-21, 10-21 to former world champion Nozomi Okuhara.
India’s sole victory in the tie came in the doubles, where Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand beat the World No. 3 pair Yuki Fukushima and Mayu Matsumoto 21-17, 21-16 in under an hour. The Jolly–Gopichand pairing had captured bronze at the New Delhi World Championships not long ago, and their win was the only match where India went in with near-parity in reputation and recent form.
Sindhu’s three-game match with Yamaguchi illustrated the physical toll of a long first game: she recovered from 13-17 down to take the opener 23-21 in rallies averaging 35 to 36 shots, then shifted to a more aggressive net approach in the second and lost 18-21 before falling away in the decider, trailing 6-14 at one stage. The account notes that such a demanding first game is “physically brutal” and that the change in tactics in game two did not succeed.
Unnati Hooda’s match followed a different pattern: after losing the first game 16-21 she led 11-4 in the second but surrendered that advantage and lost 18-21. Tanvi Sharma never established a lead against Okuhara, trailing 4-11 at the interval in game two before the match ended 12-21, 10-21. The order of play also worked against India: Sindhu went out first as the team’s most experienced player, and once she lost Japan required only one more victory to clinch the tie; Unnati’s defeat made it 2-0, Treesa and Gayatri’s win reduced the deficit to 2-1, but Sharma was unable to force a deciding match.
Japan will meet An Se Young’s South Korea in the women’s team semi-final, while India leave the tournament without a team medal and will not stand on the Asian Games team podium until at least the next edition.