France Took Two Golds at the Badminton Worlds in Delhi and Alex Lanier Needed Only Forty-Two Points to Win the Men's Singles
Alex Lanier beat Kodai Naraoka 21-11, 21-11 for a first world title. An Se-young took a second women's crown, and the defending men's champion lost in round one.
The 2026 BWF World Championships were held in New Delhi from 17 to 23 August, the first time India has staged them since 2009. France won two golds. Alex Lanier, 21, beat Japan's Kodai Naraoka 21-11, 21-11 in the men's singles final, conceding twenty-two points in a world final.
The finals
| Event | Champion |
|---|---|
| Men's singles | Alex Lanier (FRA) beat Kodai Naraoka 21-11, 21-11 |
| Women's singles | An Se-young (KOR), second world title |
| Mixed doubles | Thom Gicquel and Delphine Delrue (FRA) beat Feng Yan Zhe and Huang Dong Ping |
| Men's doubles | Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang (CHN) |
| Women's doubles | South Korea |
South Korea finished with two golds, in women's singles and women's doubles. France's two came in men's singles and mixed doubles, which is the strongest World Championships a European nation has had in the discipline in some time.
The upsets
Ayush Shetty beat the defending champion and world number one Shi Yu Qi in the opening round. Garret Tan, an eighteen-year-old American ranked ninety-second, beat India's Lakshya Sen. A first round exit for the top seed reshapes a knockout draw more than any other single result, and the men's singles half it happened in was open from that point on.
The Southeast Asian entry
| Nation | Entries | Players |
|---|---|---|
| Thailand | 12 | 18 |
| Indonesia | 12 | 20 |
| Malaysia | 11 | 18 |
| Singapore | 6 | 8 |
That is a substantial regional presence at the thirtieth edition of the championships, spread across all five disciplines.
The home result
India's Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand took women's doubles bronze, ending a fifteen-year wait for an Indian women's doubles medal at the World Championships. Around eight thousand people were in the Indira Gandhi Arena for their semi-final.
Where it sits on Playdash
Playdash carries badminton markets across the BWF calendar, and Southeast Asian badminton is among the better followed sports on the platform. This is editorial coverage of a completed championship rather than a market preview.
Finals results, scores, upsets and entry counts as published in BWF World Championships 2026 reporting. The women's doubles champions are recorded here at national level because the source consulted named the country rather than the pair. Correct at the time of writing on 29 August 2026.