Badminton Asia Team C'ships: India men's & women's teams knocked out in quarter-finals

The young Indian women's team faced a quarter-final exit at the hands of hosts China at the 2026 Badminton Asia Team Championships in Qingdao on Friday.

The defending champions faced a 0-3 defeat after losing the first three matches of the tie. They will return empty-handed from the continental championships.

China was always expected to be a tough opponent for India, having multiple top-ranked players in the lineup, including world no. 10 Gao Fang Jie in singles.

Later in the day, the men's team also faced a quarterfinal exit, losing 1-3 to South Korea after both the doubles and Ayush Shetty in the singles lost their respective matches.

Kidambi Srikanth was the only positive for the day as he registered a comfortable straight-game 21-15, 21-16 win in his match against Ji Hoon Choi.

The tie started with an upset victory for World no.74 Tae Bin Yoo, who defeated Ayush in a marathon one-hour and 24-minute-long match, 18-21, 21-14, 26-24.

India had rested Lakshya Sen and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy for this quarterfinal tie, which backfired in the team, and they went medal-less for the third consecutive edition.

No Medal for Defending Champions

Gao started the match for China with a thrashing 21-9, 21-9 win over the 17-year-old Tanvi Sharma, giving the home team a very strong start to the tie.

Following that, the world no.4 pairing of Jia Yi Fan and Zhang Shu Xian edged past the top-ranked Indian duo of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand, 24-22, 21-17.

The young Indian pair fought bravely against a higher-ranked pair to come back from a 7-point deficit to force extra points in the opening game.

However, they couldn't finish the game, losing closely 22-24, and then shifted the momentum back to the Chinese, who closed out the match in straight games.

In the third match, Rakshitha Sree started positively, winning the opening game against Wen Jing Xu, but then conceded the next two games to lose the match, 21-14, 15-21, 17-21.