The year was 2009. Denmark and Macau walked away from their bids to host the BWF World championships. The opportunity fell into India’s lap. Hyderabad had no clue at the time that it was about to stage the opening scene of a story that would take 17 years to finish telling.

In 2009, the country did not have the cast of characters to make a home World championships a triumph. Badminton had only flickered across the Indian imagination during Prakash Padukone’s All England title in 1980 and P. Gopi Chand’s echoing of it 21 years later — stray flares in a long darkness.

Humble beginnings

Saina Nehwal was the closest thing to a rising star. Aged 19 then, she had just become the first Indian woman to win the World junior championship and the first Indian to claim a Super Series title. The Olympic medal and No. 1 ranking were still years away. P.V. Sindhu was 14.

There was no Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) funding. Corporate India didn’t see a reason to cut a cheque. Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ) was in its early stages.

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Saina’s quarterfinal finish at the 2008 Beijing Olympics caught the nation’s attention but the machinery beneath the sport hadn’t caught up to the moment. When the Worlds came to Hyderabad in 2009, the money just wasn’t there.

Gopi Chand himself went door to door, hat in hand, trying to talk India Inc. into caring. Yonex’s entire sponsorship contribution was around 200 boxes of shuttlecocks. Government support was barely a whisper. The multi-purpose Gachibowli indoor stadium became the stage, and the crew running it were young players — and sometimes their parents — pressed into service.

“We hosted a bunch of events in that period. Nationals [2004], Asian championships [2005], India Open [2008 and 2009], and the World championships, after which the Commonwealth Games infrastructure was created in Delhi. We had our challenges, but we hosted a grand event. People still talk about it in Hyderabad,” Gopi Chand recalled.

H.S. Prannoy, a volunteer in 2009, put the improbability of it more bluntly.

“Badminton wasn’t popular then, so people were hesitant to sponsor it. I remember hearing a lot about Gopi sir doing the rounds to ask for sponsorships. But I don’t think there was even one complaint about the event. To pull it off the way they did was spectacular,” he said.

“We were all there at that time as volunteers, helping arrange small things. But the one thing we all remember is that we got a chance to watch guys like Lin Dan and Lee Chong Wei up close — which, back then, was almost impossible! The confidence and motivation you get from seeing them live propelled me for the next couple of years.”

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The tournament came off without a hitch. And yet India finished empty-handed, still stuck on the single bronze Padukone won in 1983.

Seventeen years later, the Worlds return to a country that no longer merely makes up the numbers. It now expects to be standing on the podium, and usually is. Fourteen medals have arrived in the years since, spread across every discipline but mixed doubles, crowned by Sindhu’s gold in 2019.

Ask what lit the fuse on all of it, Saina’s run at the 2008 Olympics and her bronze four years later in London take centre stage for many.

The spark

“Saina’s performance in 2008 was probably the spark, but the 2012 medal was what really changed things from a funding perspective. Before that, we used to think it was only the Indonesians and Chinese who could medal at these big events. When Saina won, everyone had hope that if she could win one, maybe we could too,” Prannoy said.

“I don’t think there’s been one singular turning point, honestly,” Gopi Chand differed. “My winning the All England was big. Without it, the idea of the academy and the belief that Indians could win at the highest stage wouldn’t have come. Then Saina’s win was the moment Indian women started to believe they could win.”

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Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa took the Worlds bronze in 2011, snapping a 28-year drought. A year later, Saina clinched India’s maiden Olympic medal in badminton. By 2015, she had topped the world rankings — the first Indian woman to do so — and claimed the country’s first Worlds silver. Sindhu then walked through the door that had been kicked open, and Indian badminton never looked back.

But medals aren’t the only measure of evolution.

“In 2008, I remember tournaments being cancelled for lack of entries. Today, we hosted an Under-17 event with 4,200 entries at the national level. The sport now needs — and has — a much larger official setup,” Gopi Chand explained.

Ayush Shetty, one of India’s most promising young talents, has seen the winds change at the grassroots. “I didn’t have the support system a 14-year-old has now when I was that age. You have physios, trainers, and everything else now. Back in my day, I didn’t know much about recovery, it was all about working hard only.”

Corporate India slowly began embracing the sport. Money came, infrastructure followed.

Sindhu, now the face of badminton rather than a kid running around in the stands, points to a support system that simply didn’t exist for her predecessors. “OGQ has been backing me since I was 14, when I was still a junior and not even on the senior circuit. That kind of support in the starting stages is very important!”

“Now BAI has its own academy in Guwahati,” BAI general secretary Sanjay Mishra noted. “We have sponsors like Yonex [title sponsor of the 2026 edition]. In 2009, we had just four to five senior ranking tournaments. Now we have 30 to 32 tournaments a year across different levels. It’s a clear reflection of the sport’s popularity.”

Not every experiment survived the journey, though.

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The Indian Badminton League, later rebranded the Premier Badminton League, briefly turned the sport into a televised, commercial entity, only to buckle under the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic, undone less by the lack of appetite than by a pile-up of logistics, an overcrowded international calendar, and commercial disagreements behind the scenes.

Government investment, however, firmed up and brought Indian badminton something 2009 never had: depth. Where the country once staked everything on a single Padukone- or Gopi Chand-shaped miracle, it now walks into a World championships with waves of match-winners. If the singles medal doesn’t come, the doubles might deliver instead.

The scale of change

That, more than anything, is the real distance between 2009 and 2026, and it has demanded 17 years of quiet, unglamorous institution-building. Real academies now stand where one man’s mortgaged house once did. A queue of contenders has replaced the single name carrying an entire nation’s hopes.

The real ambition now isn’t one champion every generation but ten players in contention at once, so that whoever wins, India wins.

Hyderabad asked the country to believe. Delhi is proof that it was right to.

Indian doubles badminton specialist Ashwini Ponnappa on Tuesday said she received little to no individual financial assistance from the sports ministry in the build up to Paris Olympics and even her request for a coach was turned down ahead of the just-concluded Games. The Sports Authority of India (SAI) had come out with a document, detailing the financial support provided to the Paris-bound Indian athletes. It mentions that Ashwini was provided Rs 4,50,000 under TOPS and Rs 1,48,04,080 under Annual calendar for Training and Competition (ACTC), which included the procurement of Game Ready recovery equipment, international competitions and sparring partner in the Tokyo cycle.

“I’m absolutely shocked.. I don’t mind not getting money but telling the nation that I got money is ridiculous. I haven’t received it. Like if you’re talking about national camp, then that 1.5 Crore is spent on all the campers,” Ashwini told PTI.

“I don’t have a specific coach. As for my personalised trainer, I’m paying for him myself. I’m not taking money from anyone. I’ve played on my own until November (2023). I was included as part of TOPS only after we qualified…”

Ashwini, 34, has been one of the top Indian doubles player, having won a gold, a silver and a bronze in the Commonwealth Games 2010, 2014 and 2018 respectively.

She has also competed in the London and Rio Olympics with Jwala Gutta.

Detailing the Rs 1.48 crore spending, a SAI source said: “The Rs 1.48 crore has been spent on her on travel, stay, food, competition fee, DA in all the competitions that she participated in as part of the Indian team in the Paris cycle.

“This money is given to BAI as part of ACTC.”

Ashwini, who had paired with N Sikki Reddy till August, 2022, joined hands with Tanisha Crasto in December that year and started playing in international tournaments from January 2023.

A series of good performances helped them seal their Paris berth, after which the duo were included in the TOPS scheme in May this year.

“The ministry has always supported me. I’ve been part of the team for years and I’m grateful for the support I’ve received,” Ashwini said.

“The last year I haven’t been supported and it’s ok. But you can’t say I’ve been given Rs 1.5 crore, if it’s over four years, fair enough. As I was TOPS when I was partnering Sikki.”

Playing her third Olympics, Ashwini was left in tears after she and her partner Tanisha couldn’t win a single match to make an unceremonious exit from the group stage.

“I haven’t played well, irrespective of the coach not being there, I take responsibility for that. But you can’t say I’m getting this amount when I haven’t even got this amount,” she said. 

Following Indian badminton stars’ dismal campaign at the Paris Olympics, many shuttlers have been criticised for their performance in the quadrennial event, especially considering the support they have received from authorities and the government. Even Prakash Padukone, former All-England winner and Lakshya Sen’s coach, tore into the athletes for their failure to step up and deliver a medal. Reflecting on India’s poor badminton show in the Paris Games, a report in PTI highlighted the sort of money that badminton stars received from the TOPS scheme. However, shuttler Ashwini Ponnappa has called the report ‘a lie’.

A report in PTI stated that HS Prannoy, a bronze-medallist at the 2023 World Championships and Asian Games, received Rs 1.8 crore for training. His performance in the Paris Olympics was hindered by Chikungunya, leading to a loss in the pre-quarterfinals.

The report also said that Ashwini and Tanisha, women’s doubles partners at the Paris Olympics, on the other hand, received Rs 1.5 crore each in support. They were eliminated in the group stage itself.

Reacting to the report, however, Ashwini fumed, saying she didn’t receive any money at all.

“How can an article be written without getting facts right? How can this lie be written? Received 1.5 CR each? From whom? For what ? I haven’t received this money. I was not even part of any organisation or TOPS for funding,” she wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

The government also reportedly spent a total of Rs 5.62 crores on men’s doubles duo of Satwik-Sairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty but they were upset by Malaysia’s Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik in the quarter-finals, prompting their Danish coach Mathias Boe to quit coaching.

The government had also reportedly spent Rs 26.60 lakh and Rs 9.33 lakh sanctioned for Sindhu and Lakshya’s training in Germany and France, respectively.

PV Sindhu, India’s marquee women’s singles Player, is said to have received Rs 3.13 crore in support from the government. She was unable to progress beyond the pre-quarterfinals.

As a whole, the Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) Mission Olympic Cell reportedly allocated Rs 72.03 crore on the badminton contingent alone, from the total pool of nearly Rs 470 crore spent on India’s Olympic preparations across 16 disciplines.

With PTI Inputs

Prakash Padukone has faced a lot of criticism for his comments on badminton star Lakshya Sen’s loss against Lee Zii Jia in the men’s singles bronze medal match at the Paris Olympics 2024. India did not win a single medal in badminton at the Olympics this year with Lakshya coming close but ending fourth in his category. Padukone, who was the coach and mentor of the badminton team at the Paris Olympics, was very disappointed with the results and said that it was “high time the players step up and win as expected”. The comments garnered mixed reactions from both fans and players with Ashwini Ponnappa even coming up with a fiery reply. Olympic medallist Abhinav Bindra, who was present at the Paris Olympics 2024 as a part of the International Olympic Committee’s Athletes Commission, said that he does not completely disagree with Padukone but believes that “accountability has to be collective”.

“Accountability has to be collective, and an athlete is very much part of it. So I don’t completely disagree with what Mr. Padukone said. I understand where he’s coming from, but that doesn’t mean that you have to stop spending on athletes. It’s just you have to make sure how that money is spent. Yes, you cannot always wrap your athletes in cotton wool,” Bindra said in an interview with Indian Express.

Earlier, Padukone also said that India must focus on giving mind training to its athletes so that they can learn to counter pressure situations. He suggested that there must be a system in place like it is in China, where they do not depend on one player and succeed in churning out players.

“We cannot remain satisfied just having one player. We need to focus on the next line, maybe even the third line. Like they do in cricket. You have the main team, then the ‘A’ team, then the under-19 team, under-17 team. So we need to focus. There is a lot of talent, there is absolutely no doubt but a combined effort is required,” he told reporters.

The former All England champion said India must focus on giving mind training to its athletes, so that they can learn to counter pressure situations.

He also suggested that there must be a system in place, like it is in China, where they do not depend on one player and succeed in churning out players.

“We cannot remain satisfied just having one player. We need to focus on the next line, maybe even the third line. Like they do in cricket. You have the main team, then the ‘A’ team, then the under-19 team, under-17 team. So we need to focus. There is a lot of talent, there is absolutely no doubt but a combined effort is required,” he told reporters.

“And a little bit of effort from the players also. A little more responsibility, a little more accountability. Not just ask for whatever you ask for. Once you are given that, you also have to be accountable. I think the players have to learn to take responsibility.”

In a viral rant, Prakash Padukone, the coach of the Indian badminton contingent at the Paris Olympics 2024, stated that it was “high time the players step up and win”. Padukone’s remarks came after Lakshya Sen lost the men’s bronze medal match to Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia, which ended India’s hopes of clinching a badminton medal at the Paris Olympics 2024. Lakshya’s defeat came after the pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, one of the favourites to win a medal, also crashed out in the quarterfinals.

Padukone stated that players should also take some responsibility. “All the support and finances needed to perform at the top level were given to the Indian players. It’s not like earlier times when our players lacked facilities and funds. So, it’s high time our players step up and win as expected,” Padukone told reporters.

Veteran shuttler Ashwini Ponnappa had issued a strong response to Padukone, saying that he shouldn’t have thrown the players under the bus.

“Disappointing to see this. If a player wins, everyone jumps on the bandwagon to take credit, and if they lose, it’s just the player’s fault?!” Ponnappa wrote in an Instagram story.

Was Prakash Padukone’s Outrage Justified?

Padukone’s rant had the internet divided. Some suggested that the former Indian shuttler did the right thing, saying that the players should indeed take the responsibility.

Meanwhile, others claimed that throwing players under the bus wasn’t the smartest thing he ever did.

However, criticising Padukone for his remarks isn’t really justified either, especially considering that whatever he said was somewhat true.

Satwiksairag and Chirag were a game up against Malaysia’s Aaron Chia and Soh Woo Yik in the men’s double quarterfinals.

However, the former world no. 1 pair squandered the advantage to make a shock exit from the men’s doubles draw.

Similarly, Lakshya Sen was in a commanding position in both, the semi-final against eventual champion Viktor Axelsen as well as the bronze medal clash against Lee.

He narrowly lost the first game to Axelsen, and led 7-0 at one point in the second game. However, some poor decision-making cost him the match.

He also won the game of the bronze medal match, before throwing the tie away in a similar fashion.

Looking at the above arguments, it is fair to say that the shuttler should indeed “pull up their socks”. 

File photo of Lakshya Sen© AFP