🏸The Drop
The World Championships return to India from 17 to 23 August, with New Delhi hosting the event for the first time and India staging it for only the second time, 17 years after Hyderabad in 2009.
Across five events there is very little consensus beyond the identity of the favourites. Shi Yu Qi is the defending men’s singles champion and world No. 1, but begins against one of India’s most dangerous young players. An Se Young remains the player to beat in women’s singles, although she has already been beaten in major finals this year. Men’s doubles has changed shape dramatically over the summer, while the defending mixed doubles champions will not even be in New Delhi.
Below is The Shuttle Drop’s attempt to pick all five champions by weighing what normally matters most at this level: recent form, major-event pedigree, matchup history and, crucially, the route through the draw.
🔥 What everyone is talking about
The setting adds another variable. The Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium hosted January’s India Open as a test event for these Championships, and the week was not an entirely comfortable rehearsal. Players raised concerns over air quality, cold conditions and venue hygiene; matches were interrupted by bird fouling and a monkey also found its way into a training area.
Organisers have since waterproofed the roof, tested and upgraded the air-conditioning and lighting, sealed access points and strengthened animal-control measures. BWF has also pointed out that Delhi’s August monsoon period usually produces better air quality than the winter conditions experienced in January. The venue should therefore be better prepared, but how the large hall, air movement and conditions actually play once four courts are in operation will still be worth watching from the first session.
Men’s Singles
Top pick: Shi Yu Qi
Outside pick: Toma Junior Popov
One to watch: Ayush Shetty
There is a reasonable argument that men’s singles is the most open of the five events, but there is still a logical place to start. Shi Yu Qi is world No. 1, the top seed and the defending world champion. In Paris last year he finally converted a career that had contained almost everything except the world title, recovering from a game down to beat Kunlavut Vitidsarn 19-21, 21-10, 21-18 in a 77-minute final. It came seven years after his silver medal in 2018 and was his tenth consecutive victory in a final. There is no longer a question over whether Shi can handle the final weekend of a major championship.
His 2026 evidence is strong enough too. In April he added the Asian Championships title that had been missing from his résumé and did it by dismantling Ayush Shetty 21-8, 21-10 in 42 minutes. Shi controlled the net, took the shuttle early and repeatedly denied the Indian the time needed to turn his height and reach into sustained attacking pressure. If the two were meeting on neutral territory in the middle rounds of an ordinary World Tour event, that result would make the argument fairly simple.
Instead, the draw has put the rematch in round one in New Delhi.
That is enough to introduce doubt. Shetty had an extraordinary Asian Championships before that final, beating Li Shi Feng in the opening round, then former Asian champion Jonatan Christie in the quarterfinals before recovering from a game down to beat Kunlavut in the semifinal. He reached the final as a 20-year-old by eliminating three players with substantially greater big-event experience. The final against Shi showed how much development is still required, but it also established that his ceiling is already high enough to bother the elite.
Home support makes this version of the matchup more interesting than Ningbo, although the recent form evidence cuts back towards Shi. Shetty has dealt with an elbow issue and has not reproduced his April run consistently through the summer. The most likely outcome remains a Shi victory, but it is an unusually demanding opening assignment for the No. 1 seed. A player trying to defend his world title would normally expect a few rounds to grow into the tournament. Shi may need a near-quarterfinal level immediately.
If he gets through it, the draw starts to look friendlier. Alwi Farhan, the 11th seed, occupies the other seeded position in Shi’s immediate section, while Chou Tien Chen and Weng Hong Yang sit on the other side of the quarter. The likely quarterfinal therefore comes from Shi/Alwi against Chou/Weng rather than one of the most intimidating clusters elsewhere in the draw.
That is not to dismiss Chou. The 36-year-old arrives after becoming the oldest Super 1000 champion in history at the China Open, where he defeated Toma Junior Popov 21-15, 7-21, 21-13. His route to that title included the defending China Open champion Shi, and the achievement carried particular weight given that Chou underwent surgery for early-stage colorectal cancer in 2023. His ability to keep finding solutions against younger and more explosive players is one of the great late-career stories in badminton.
The second quarter offers no such clarity. Anders Antonsen is the highest seed, but Toma Junior Popov, Li Shi Feng and Kodai Naraoka are all in the same quarter. Toma is our outside pick because his China Open run was not simply a good week at a convenient tournament. He became the first French singles player ever to reach a Super 1000 final, beat Victor Lai in three games in the semifinal and showed an ability to adapt to difficult drift throughout the week. His likely route eventually brings him towards Antonsen, which is why he remains an outside rather than primary selection, but his level has moved noticeably closer to the top group.
France as a whole has given the draw an unusual texture. Alex Lanier won the Singapore Open, Christo Popov won the Japan Open and Toma followed by reaching the China Open final. Christo also ended 2025 by beating Shi 21-19, 21-9 in the World Tour Finals final. There is no longer anything surprising about a French player reaching the last weekend of a major tournament.
Unfortunately for France, two of those three sit in what looks like the most punishing quarter of the entire championship. Jonatan Christie, Lanier, Christo, Lakshya Sen and Kunlavut Vitidsarn all occupy the bottom quarter. Kunlavut alone brings a 2023 world title, a Paris Olympic silver medal and last year’s world silver. Lakshya reached his second All England final in March. Christo is the recent Japan Open champion. Lanier has already won a major title this summer. Even getting to the semifinal from that section could require three matches of medal-round quality.
That congestion is another reason to stay with Shi. There are players in better immediate form than there were when he became world champion last year, and his very first match is dangerous, but the defending champion avoids the deepest part of the draw. His game also carries fewer obvious matchup dependencies than most of the challengers: he can defend patiently when the hall is slow, take the shuttle early when conditions reward attack, and has become considerably better at accepting ugly passages of a match without allowing them to change his decision-making.
The first round may tell us more than expected. If Shi deals comfortably with the home noise and Shetty’s reach, his path towards the semifinal becomes much easier to trust. If the match stretches into a deciding game, the men’s singles title race could feel open before most contenders have even unpacked their second racket.
Women’s Singles
Top pick: An Se Young
Outside pick: P. V. Sindhu
One to watch: Tomoka Miyazaki
If the purpose is simply to select the player most likely to win, An Se Young remains the clearest top pick anywhere in the five events.
That does not mean she is untouchable. In fact, 2026 has been useful precisely because it has reminded the rest of women’s singles that there are routes through her game. Wang Zhi Yi ended a 10-match losing run against An in the All England final, winning 21-15, 21-19 and snapping a 36-match winning streak. A month later, An responded at the Asian Championships, beating Wang 21-12, 17-21, 21-18 over 100 minutes to move their head-to-head to 19-5.
That exchange is a useful summary of the division. An can be beaten, but opponents usually have to sustain an extremely high level for longer than is comfortable. Wang’s All England victory came from patience, low error count and a refusal to be pulled into forcing the attack. At the Asian Championships, An eventually restored control by increasing the pace at the precise moments when the decider tightened. The difference between those matches was not a secret tactical trick; it was who could maintain their preferred version of the rally for longer.
There is also a major-championship scar to consider. An entered last year’s Worlds as Olympic champion and defending world champion but lost the semifinal to Chen Yu Fei 21-15, 21-17. Akane Yamaguchi then beat an injured Chen 21-9, 21-13 to collect her third world title, joining Carolina Marín as only the second woman to win three singles world crowns.
The draw, however, falls well for An relative to her main rivals. Her opening quarter contains Mia Blichfeldt, Han Yue and Kim Ga Eun. None is an easy opponent, but the names most capable of matching An across an entire championship are elsewhere. Wang and P. V. Sindhu are in the next quarter and are projected to meet as early as the round of 16. Chen, Ratchanok Intanon and Pornpawee Chochuwong are in the third quarter, while Yamaguchi and Tomoka Miyazaki occupy the bottom quarter.
That separation is significant. An cannot face Yamaguchi or Chen before the final. Before then, the most obvious danger is a semifinal against whoever survives the Wang/Sindhu quarter.
And that quarter is where the home championship becomes particularly interesting.
Sindhu is the outside pick because there are few players in badminton for whom a World Championships draw carries so much historical weight. She has five medals from the event, including the 2019 world title, and has repeatedly produced her best badminton in championship conditions. Now she gets her first World Championships on home soil.
For much of the past two seasons that history would not have been enough to make her a serious selection. July changed the calculation. Sindhu won the Japan Open by beating Yamaguchi 21-17, 21-17, her first major World Tour title since the Singapore Open in 2022 and her first tour title of any level since December 2024. The performance was more persuasive than the trophy alone: she sustained her attack, moved well enough to tolerate Yamaguchi’s rally pressure and did not retreat from the front of the court when the Japanese player began extending exchanges.
Her draw provides no gentle route to a sixth world medal. Wang is positioned for a round-of-16 meeting with her, and the Chinese player beat Sindhu 21-18, 21-8 at April’s Asian Championships. Yet there is an interesting counterweight. At last year’s Worlds, during one of the worst stretches of Sindhu’s career, she produced a vintage performance to eliminate Wang 21-19, 21-15. The matchup therefore contains enough evidence in both directions to make seeding a poor guide.
Survive Wang, and Sindhu could still have Putri Kusuma Wardani or Line Christophersen between her and a semifinal. Then most likely comes An. It is a horrible path if judged purely by ranking, but World Championships history is full of players whose draw suddenly becomes manageable because they win the one match they were not expected to win. Sindhu has done that often enough to deserve more respect than a conventional dark-horse label.
The strongest alternative to An may still be Yamaguchi. She is the defending champion, has three world titles and responded to losing the Japan Open final by winning the China Open one week later, beating Chen 21-18, 21-16. That ability to reset is probably the defining strength of her career. Her draw also keeps An away until the final, although Miyazaki sits in her quarter and Chen could emerge from the adjacent section.
Miyazaki is our one to watch because the draw gives her an opportunity to turn an already rapid rise into a championship breakthrough. She is seeded eighth and, assuming both progress, could eventually meet Yamaguchi for control of the bottom quarter. The limitation is obvious: at the Asian Championships An improved to 7-0 against her with a 21-16, 21-10 win. Miyazaki has the skill and speed to beat most of the field, but still needs to show that her attacking quality can survive the defensive pressure generated by the very best players.
There is also a compelling home subplot in Unnati Hooda, one of India’s World Championships debutants. She has been placed in the same bottom quarter and has enough pace and front-court aggression to make an established seed uncomfortable, even if asking her to survive all the way to the weekend would be premature.
Our conclusion therefore stays conventional for a reason. Yamaguchi has the championship record, Wang has shown she can beat An, Chen stopped her at last year’s Worlds and Sindhu has rediscovered form at precisely the right moment. But all four need more things to go right. An’s base level remains higher, and the draw allows several of her strongest rivals to remove one another before she has to deal with them.
Men’s Doubles
Top pick: Fajar Alfian/Muhammad Shohibul Fikri
Outside pick: Kang Min Hyuk/Ki Dong Ju
One to watch: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty
If the World Championships had been held in May, Kim Won Ho/Seo Seung Jae would have been the straightforward selection. They are world No. 1, defending world champions and came through last year’s final 21-17, 21-12. Seo had already been a world champion with Kang Min Hyuk in 2023, so this is not a partnership learning how to manage championship week.
The reason we are looking elsewhere is what has happened since.
First, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty ended the Koreans’ 34-match winning streak on the way to winning the Singapore Open. Then Fajar Alfian/Muhammad Shohibul Fikri beat Kim/Seo 21-19, 21-17 in the Japan Open final. One week later the same pairs met again in the China Open final and the Indonesians did it again, this time recovering from a game down to win 16-21, 21-19, 21-19.
Two consecutive final victories over the world No. 1 pair shift the choice.
The story of Fajar/Fikri is unusual because the partnership began as a temporary arrangement. What initially looked like a solution to unavailable regular partners quickly became too effective to undo. They reached a series of finals, climbed to the top end of the rankings and then spent months confronting one uncomfortable weakness: for all the progress, they kept finishing second.
Japan removed that problem. China removed the possibility that Japan had been a one-off.
Their game has also become more coherent. Both players came into the partnership with strong front-court instincts, which initially made the combination look less conventionally balanced than many elite men’s doubles pairs. Over time they have become better at exchanging roles rather than assigning them. Fajar can still dominate the first three shots, but Fikri is increasingly comfortable taking over from the rear court and then following his attack forward. That makes it harder for opponents simply to lift towards one player and force the other out of his preferred position.
The draw helps too. Fajar/Fikri are in the bottom half, while Kim/Seo are at the very top, so a third consecutive meeting can only happen in the final.
That does not mean the Indonesians have a free route. Sabar Karyaman Gutama/Moh Reza Pahlevi Isfahani, former world champions Takuro Hoki/Yugo Kobayashi and the Korean pair Kang Min Hyuk/Ki Dong Ju all occupy the same quarter. Kang/Ki are especially interesting because they have already shown a route through Fajar/Fikri, beating them 21-13, 14-21, 21-16 in the Asian Championships semifinal before losing the final to Kim/Seo. That is enough to make them our outside selection rather than simply another seeded pair in the lower quarter.
The top half is arguably deeper. Kim/Seo share their opening quarter with Ben Lane/Sean Vendy, Goh Sze Fei/Nur Izzuddin and Chiu Hsiang Chieh/Wang Chi-Lin. The adjacent quarter contains 2022 world champions Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik, Man Wei Chong/Tee Kai Wun, Chen Bo Yang/Liu Yi and Daniel Lundgaard/Mads Vestergaard.
The third quarter may be the most emotionally loaded because it contains Satwik/Chirag. Their upside is enough to win the tournament. They proved that in Singapore, ending a two-year title drought and beating Kim/Seo before defeating Fajar/Fikri 18-21, 21-17, 21-16 in the final.
The problem is whether Satwik’s shoulder will allow them to reproduce it for an entire week. The injury resurfaced immediately after Singapore, forced another retirement at the Indonesia Open and then returned during their Japan Open first round, where they retired after losing the opening game to Lundgaard/Vestergaard. They skipped the China Open to recover. Their coach, Tan Kim Her, has said clearly that their ability to contend for the world title is not the concern; maintaining Satwik’s shoulder through the event is.
Their draw is not especially forgiving either. Liang Wei Keng/Wang Chang are in the same quarter, with Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen also nearby. If Satwik/Chirag arrive healthy, home support and the confidence from Singapore give them a genuine medal route. If the shoulder begins to restrict the rear-court attack, the structure of their game changes very quickly because so much of Chirag’s front-court pressure is created by opponents respecting Satwik’s power behind him.
So why Fajar/Fikri over the reigning world champions? Not because they have suddenly become a better pair in every circumstance. Kim/Seo still have the stronger championship record and probably the highest defensive floor in the draw. But this preview is trying to pick the team most likely to win in New Delhi, not reward the best résumé. The Indonesians have just beaten the benchmark pair in consecutive finals, their rotation is improving and they are on the opposite side of the draw from the Koreans.
That is enough for the narrowest of top picks.
Women’s Doubles
Top pick: Liu Sheng Shu/Tan Ning
Outside pick: Yuki Fukushima/Mayu Matsumoto
One to watch: Kim Hye Jeong/Kong Hee Yong
Women’s doubles begins with a contradiction. Liu Sheng Shu/Tan Ning have been the strongest pair over the full season and arrive as defending world champions, yet one of the most convincing reasons to oppose them is sitting on the opposite side of the draw.
Last year’s world final gave Liu/Tan the first part of their current authority. They beat Pearly Tan/Thinaah Muralitharan 21-14, 20-22, 21-17 over 83 minutes to become world champions. In 2026 they have added the All England and, most recently, the China Open, where they became the first women’s pair to win three Super 1000 titles in a single World Tour season. Their 21-14, 21-19 victory in Changzhou was achieved without dropping a game all week.
That run is particularly impressive because Tan Ning’s fitness had looked uncertain earlier in the year. The pair had withdrawn from the Japan Open and Tan had been dealing with a leg problem. What followed in China was not a cautious return. She repeatedly moved forward to intercept, at times taking on more of the playmaking responsibility normally associated with Liu. Whether that adjustment came partly from managing her movement or was simply tactical, it made the pair more difficult to read.
Their draw is competitive rather than alarming. Gabriela Stoeva/Stefani Stoeva and Kim Hye Jeong/Kong Hee Yong sit in the same top quarter, meaning a possible quarterfinal against the Koreans could become the first genuine championship test. Jia Yi Fan/Zhang Shu Xian anchor the adjacent quarter.
Kim/Kong are the pair worth following closely. Kong returned from knee surgery at the Japan Open and immediately won the title with Kim, beating Jia/Zhang 14-21, 21-15, 30-29 in a 99-minute final in which both pairs held six match points. That is not a normal comeback tournament, and the capacity to survive such a match immediately after months out suggests their ceiling is already back near medal level.
The strongest argument against Liu/Tan, however, comes from the bottom half. Yuki Fukushima/Mayu Matsumoto beat them 21-15, 18-21, 21-18 in the Indonesia Open final in June. The Chinese pair got their revenge at the China Open, winning 21-14, 21-19, which leaves the two major finals between them this summer at one apiece.
There is also considerable experience between the Japanese players. Matsumoto is a two-time former world champion from her partnership with Wakana Nagahara, while Fukushima spent years at the top of the discipline with Hirota Sayaka and reached multiple World Championship finals. This is a relatively new partnership made from two players who understand exactly what the final three days of a world championship feel like.
The draw strengthens their case as the outside selection. Fukushima/Matsumoto are at the bottom of the bracket, away from Liu/Tan until a possible final. Their quarter contains Li Yi Jing/Luo Xu Min, Rachel Allessya Rose/Febi Setianingrum and Hsu Ya Ching/Sung Yu-Hsuan, which is competitive but preferable to the sections containing the defending champions or Baek Ha Na/Lee So Hee.
The third quarter is where Malaysia’s hopes become particularly interesting. Pearly Tan/Thinaah Muralitharan, last year’s silver medallists, are positioned in the same quarter as Baek/Lee. A fully fit Malaysian pair can beat anyone in the tournament, but that route is less attractive than the one available to the Japanese.
For all that, Liu/Tan remain the selection. They have won too much, in too many different conditions, to be moved off the top because of one defeat in Jakarta. Their China Open response was important because it showed they could absorb that loss, adjust and beat the same opponents comfortably seven weeks later.
The gap is not large. If the final is Liu/Tan against Fukushima/Matsumoto, it will feel less like favourite against outsider than the third part of a summer trilogy.
Mixed Doubles
Top pick: Feng Yan Zhe/Huang Dong Ping
Outside pick: Guo Xin Wa/Chen Fang Hui
One to watch: Yuta Watanabe/Maya Taguchi
The mixed doubles draw lost its defending champions before it was made. Chen Tang Jie/Toh Ee Wei, who won Malaysia’s first mixed doubles world title in Paris last year, have withdrawn while Toh rehabilitates from surgery on the ACL injury she suffered at the Singapore Open. Their absence promoted Wong Tien Ci/Lim Chiew Sien into the field and removes one of the few pairs with recent proof that they can beat China’s leading combinations on the biggest stage.
That makes Feng Yan Zhe/Huang Dong Ping the logical starting point. They are the top seeds, have been one of the most reliable pairs on the World Tour and bring a balance that works unusually well in championship badminton. Feng is physically imposing enough to sustain pressure from the rear court but does not need to force winners on every attack; Huang remains one of the best readers of the first four shots in mixed doubles and has enough experience to change the shape of a match without requiring a coaching interval to do it.
The reservation is recent and specific. At the China Open, Guo Xin Wa/Chen Fang Hui beat them 25-23, 20-22, 21-15 in an 87-minute final. It was not a match in which Feng/Huang simply had a poor afternoon. Guo/Chen absorbed long periods of pressure, resisted multiple opportunities to lose the second game and still had enough control left to take the decider. It was their second Super 1000 title since the 2025 All England.
That victory is why Guo/Chen are our outside pick, but their route is awkward. They occupy the bottom quarter with second seeds Jiang Zhen Bang/Wei Ya Xin, last year’s world silver medallists. The interesting part is that Guo/Chen also beat Jiang/Wei during their China Open title run. In other words, the outside pick is not based on hoping the draw removes China’s top pairs for them. They have recent evidence of doing the job themselves.
The bracket gives Feng/Huang the cleaner route. Their top quarter contains Yuta Watanabe/Maya Taguchi, Cheng Xing/Zhang Chi and Goh Soon Huat/Lai Shevon Jemie. It is a technically interesting section, but Feng/Huang should start favourite against every pair in it.
The intrigue is Watanabe/Taguchi. Watanabe has spent much of his career making mixed doubles look geometrically different from how everybody else plays it. His ability to create steep angles despite giving away height, his willingness to defend cross-court rather than simply reset straight, and his speed through the forecourt mean a new partnership with Taguchi is worth watching even before the results justify calling them title contenders. They reached the latter stages of the Asian Championships and have already produced strong results against established combinations. The problem in New Delhi is that their experimentation has landed in the top seeds’ quarter.
The second quarter deserves more attention than it may initially receive. Mathias Christiansen/Alexandra Bøje have put together one of the best stretches of any mixed pair this year. During an Asian swing in late spring they won the Thailand Open, Singapore Open and Indonesia Open, with the last of those becoming their first Super 1000 title. They won 19 matches and lost only once across four consecutive tournaments.
They share that part of the draw with Tang Chun Man/Tse Ying Suet, Yang Po-Hsuan/Hu Ling Fang and Ye Hong Wei/Nicole Gonzales Chan. The latter pair won the All England in March by beating Thom Gicquel/Delphine Delrue in the final. There is therefore a strong possibility that the eventual semifinalist from that section arrives having already survived one or two matches that would not look out of place on finals day.
Gicquel/Delrue, meanwhile, are in the third quarter with Dechapol Puavaranukroh/Supissara Paewsampran. Both pairs have the tools to trouble the favourites. Gicquel/Delrue reached the All England final and later the China Open semifinal, while the Thai pair have enough attacking quality to take the racket away from almost anybody when Dechapol controls the rear court and Supissara gets established in front.
What keeps bringing the selection back to Feng/Huang is not invincibility but probability. The defending champions are absent. Guo/Chen and Jiang/Wei are drawn into one another’s quarter. Christiansen/Bøje have a crowded section. Gicquel/Delrue and Dechapol/Supissara may have to deal with each other before the medal rounds. Feng/Huang have both the highest established level and the least damaging route.
The China Open defeat is enough to prevent this from being a confident pick. It is also useful evidence. If Feng/Huang get another meeting with Guo/Chen in New Delhi, they will arrive with a fresh tactical problem to solve rather than the complacency of an eight-match winning streak in the matchup.
That is exactly the sort of detail on which a world title can turn.
🙌 Final point
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