Indian shuttlers from Padukone to Jolly/Gopichand: World Championships medallists list
Prakash Padukone won India’s first BWF World Championships medal with a men’s singles bronze in 1983, and the most recent Indian medallists are Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand, who took bronze in the 2026 edition.
India did not return to the World Championships podium until 2011, when Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa won bronze in women’s doubles, ending a 28-year gap and initiating a run of medalling in 15 consecutive editions. Jwala and Ponnappa were the first Indian doubles medallists at the tournament and remained the only Indian women’s doubles medallists until 2026. PV Sindhu is the only Indian to have won gold at the World Championships, achieving that in 2019.
Prakash Padukone’s 1983 bronze stood alone for nearly three decades before India’s next medals in the 2010s. PV Sindhu became the first Indian woman to win a singles medal at the World Championships with a bronze in 2013 and repeated that result in 2014.
Saina Nehwal won silver in 2015, the first Indian to reach the World Championships singles final, and added a bronze in 2017. PV Sindhu took silver in 2017 and 2018 before winning gold in 2019, giving her a sequence of three successive World Championships medals through 2019.
B. Sai Praneeth won bronze in men’s singles at the 2019 tournament, becoming the first Indian man to medal since Padukone. The 2021 World Championships produced Lakshya Sen’s first World Championships bronze and Kidambi Srikanth’s first World Championships silver, with Srikanth becoming the first man to win silver at the event. In 2022, Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy claimed bronze in men’s doubles, the first Indian men’s pair to medal at the World Championships.
HS Prannoy secured bronze at the 2023 edition after reaching the semi-finals with a win over Viktor Axelsen and then losing to Kunlavut Vitidsarn, becoming the fifth Indian male medallist. At the 2025 World Championships in Paris, Satwik and Chirag matched their 2022 result by winning bronze again, losing in the semi-finals to China’s Chen Boyang and Liu Yi by 19–21, 21–18, 12–21.
Playing at home in 2026, Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand won bronze after entering the tournament ranked World No. 39, advancing to the quarter-finals without dropping a game, defeating Rin Iwanaga and Kie Nakanishi in straight games, then overcoming fourth seeds Jia Yifan and Zhang Shuxian in the semi-finals to secure a medal before losing to top seeds and Paris Olympics silver medallists Liu Shengshu and Tan Ning in three games.
India’s World Championships medal total stands at 16 — 1 gold, 4 silver and 11 bronze — and three Indian shuttlers have medalled more than once: PV Sindhu (five medals: 1 gold, 2 silver, 2 bronze), Saina Nehwal (1 silver, 1 bronze) and the duo Satwik–Chirag (two bronzes). Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand’s 2026 bronze extended India’s streak of medalling in every edition since 2011, a sequence matched only by China.