Badminton at midnight: Shuttlers battle cruel scheduling, mediocre arrangements

PV Sindhu’s third-round match against Japan’s Tomoka Miyazaki began when most other shuttlers in the competition had gone to bed on Saturday.

Yes, it began at 12:07 am on Sunday morning.

It was the second match of the day for both shuttlers.

The scheduling of badminton matches at the Asian Games 2026 in Aichi-Nagoya has left fans and shuttlers bewildered. With the team events taking place in the first week of the quadrennial event and the individual events following them, the organisers have come under fire for not being player-friendly. The issues around accommodation and travel to and from the venue, Ichinomiya City Municipal Gymnasium, have also shown Japan in a poor light.

Indian shuttler HS Prannoy, who returned home after being part of the team event in which India won bronze, called the organisation of the Asian Games mediocre, saying the lack of a Games Village took away the novelty of competing in a multi-sport spectacle.

Prannoy was among the first to raise concerns about the scheduling with a post on X.

Speaking to the Badminton Association of India in a YouTube show later on Saturday, Prannoy, a bronze medallist from Hangzhou, lashed out at the scheduling.

“A lot of people commented on my X post, saying other people are not complaining. I was about to reply saying I was not playing and I was just speaking for everybody out there, not just the Indian players," Prannoy said. Screengrab from X “Because, I remember, when we finished the team event, the prize distribution took almost an hour, and it was 11:15 pm by the time we left the stadium. And it’s one hour from the stadium to our hotel. By the time we all got back, we did not have anything to eat over there like a meal. Obviously, there were snacks. You were there from 3 pm to 11 pm the day before and there is nothing around the stadium to go to and have a meal.

“All the players came back and then had a meal at 12:30 or 1 am. I remember Dhruv and Tanisha had their first match at 9 am. What if it was against a top seed or probably a higher seed? It would have been very taxing,” he said.

“I think it’s so unfair on a lot of players. I feel it’s cruel. Everybody is aiming for a good Asian Games. It comes once every four years. Just because of your problem, it shouldn’t be happening like this,” Prannoy added.TWO MATCHES PER DAY? PV Sindhu defeated Tomoka Miyazaki of Japan in straight games in Round 3 (Courtesy: Screengrab from SonyLIV)

The team events in badminton at the Asian Games were scheduled between September 20 and 24, with the individual events beginning the following day, on September 25. The individual events are scheduled to end on September 29, although the Games run until October 4.

Prannoy questioned the need to wrap badminton up so early while expressing shock at the scheduling of two matches for players and pairs on the same day in a demanding sport like badminton, where recovery plays a key role.

In a shocking turn of events, singles players were scheduled to play two matches on the same day on Saturday, September 26. It was unprecedented, with pundits and players acknowledging that they could not remember the last time singles players were forced to play two matches on the same day at a major multi-sport event.

“Definitely, having two singles matches in a day, I have not seen that in ages. I don’t know who is scheduling it. Obviously, the 29th is the last date for badminton. But the Asian Games go on till the 4th of October. We still have five more days. I don’t understand the whole issue of not extending it by a day.

“Nobody was told anything. It’s just sad,” he said.

“It’s sad that players can’t go back to the hotel and rest and come back. I am sure a lot of players would have stayed back. It takes two hours,” he added.

It was a mixed day for Indian shuttlers as Lakshya Sen bowed out in the men’s singles second round after losing to Singapore’s Loh Kean Yew. Ayush Shetty, who began with a win over lower-ranked Makhsut Tajibullayev of Kazakhstan, lost to Chou Tien Chen in a gruelling three-game encounter, which was his second match on Saturday.

As discussed earlier, PV Sindhu’s second match of the day against higher-ranked Tomoka Miyazaki was scheduled at midnight. Fortunately, the two-time Olympic medallist clinched a comfortable 21-9, 21-13 win over the Japanese shuttler.

To make matters worse, Sindhu’s quarter-final against China’s Chen Yufei, the world No. 4, was scheduled for around 1 pm the following day on Court 4 — yes, a court without a broadcast feed for one of the sport’s biggest names.

It wasn’t just the Indian players. Some established players from other countries, including Japanese shuttlers, felt the pinch.

For instance, Thailand’s mixed doubles pairing of Dechapol Puavaranukroh and Supissara Paewsampran, ranked No. 5 in mixed doubles, lost to world No. 13 Yuta Watanabe and Maya Taguchi in a first-round match that was scheduled at 9 am. HS Prannoy revealed that Dechapol was at the venue as late as 11:30 pm the previous day because of the medal ceremony for the team event.

What was more gruelling was that Maya and Yuta themselves lost in Round 2, which was scheduled on the same day.

India’s Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also highlighted the scheduling issues after their shock first-round exit. After having been dominant in the team events, including a win over world champions Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang of China, Satwik and Chirag lost to world No. 36 Peeratchai Sukphun and Pakkapon Teeraratsakul of Thailand in a tricky three-game affair.

“I know these situations will happen. It will get tense because it will be tricky because we are playing continuously in the team event, and we were here last night till 12 o’clock, and right away we are playing one of the good matches. So it’s not going to be easy, but we prepared,” Satwik said on Friday.advertisement'MEDIOCRE' ASIAN GAMES IN JAPANPrannoy did not hold back when it came to assessing the accommodation and the lack of a Games Village. For the first time at the Asian Games, accommodation is not centralised, but has been arranged in hotels in Aichi-Nagoya and makeshift containers on a cruise ship that has been stationed in the city’s port.

“Never felt we were playing the Asian Games. It felt like we were playing the Japan Open. The whole fun and the whole point of multi-sport events is you get to meet the rest of the players. There is an opportunity to mingle with them. There is an opportunity to have a conversation with them. We only felt that when we went for the opening ceremony. We generally don’t go for the opening ceremony.

“It was literally sad to be in such a situation.

“In Hangzhou, in 2023, it was mind-blowing to see how China did it. It was probably my best experience. Then, in the next edition, in three or four years, you expect things to be better, but it just went downwards. A lot of them had difficult experiences in terms of accommodation and transport.

“It was a mediocre event, to be honest,” Prannoy said.

Despite the chaos, Indian fans will be rooting for PV Sindhu and Unnati Hooda, who takes on local hope Akane Yamaguchi in the quarter-final on Sunday. Unnati punched above her weight to beat world No. 7 Putri Kusuma Wardani on Saturday.

Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly, meanwhile, have been on a sensational run, carrying on from their bronze medal-winning run at the World Championships. On Saturday, the Indian pair stunned world No. 3 Yuki Fukushima and Mayu Matsumoto of Japan in straight games. It was their second win over Yuki and Mayu after they beat them in the women’s team event earlier in the week.

Gayatri and Treesa will face Malaysia’s Pearly Tan and Thinaah Muralitharan, the world No. 5 pair, in the women’s doubles quarter-final on Sunday.- Ends

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