Badminton at midnight: Asian Games shuttlers battle brutal scheduling in Japan

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

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

It was the second game of the day for both shuttles.

Sounds exhausting, right?

The scheduling of badminton matches at the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya has left fans and shuttlers confused. The team events, which take place in the first week of the quadrennial, followed by the individual events, have come under fire for being player-unfriendly. Problems surrounding accommodation and travel to and from the venue, Ichinomiya City High School, also cast Japan in a bad light.

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India’s shuttler HS Prannoy, who returned home after being part of the team event in which India won bronze, described the organization of the Asian Games as mediocre and said 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 X-posted planning.

Speaking to the Badminton Association of India in a YouTube show later on Saturday, Prannoy, the bronze medalist from Hangzhou, attacked the schedule.

“Many people commented on my post X saying that others are not complaining. I was going to reply that I am not playing and I was only speaking for everyone out there, not just the Indian players,” Prannoy said. Screengrab by X

“Because, I remember when we finished the team event, the prize distribution took almost an hour and when we left the stadium it was 11:15 p.m. And it’s one hour from the stadium to our hotel. By the time we all got back, we didn’t have anything to eat like food. Of course there was refreshments. You were there from 3:10 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. and there was nothing to go to the stadium.

“All the players came back and then had food at 12:30 or 1:00. I remember Dhruv and Tanisha had their first match at 9:00. What if it was against the top seed or probably a higher seed? It would be very challenging,” he said.

“I think it’s so unfair to many players. I feel it’s cruel. Everyone aspires for a good Asian Games. It comes once in four years. Just because of your problem, it shouldn’t happen like this,” Prannoy added.

TWO MATCHES IN A DAY?

PV Sindhu beats Tomoka Miyazaki of Japan in straight games in Round 3 (Courtesy: Screengrab by SonyLIV)

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

While questioning the need to quit badminton so early, Prannoy expressed shock at scheduling two singles and doubles matches on the same day in a demanding sport like badminton where recovery plays a key role.

In a shocking turn of events, the singles players were due to play two matches on the same day on Saturday 26 September. It was unprecedented, with pundits and players admitting 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, to have two singles matches in a day, I haven’t seen that in ages. I don’t know who plans it. Obviously, the 29th is the last date for badminton. But the Asian Games continues until October 4. We still have five days. I don’t understand the whole problem of not extending it by a day.”

“They didn’t tell anybody. It’s sad,” he said.

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

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

As mentioned earlier, PV Sindhu’s second match of the day against Tomoka Miyazaki at the top seed was scheduled for midnight. Fortunately, the two-time Olympic medalist secured 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 1pm the following day on Court 4 – yes, a non-broadcast court for one of the sport’s biggest names.

It wasn’t just Indian players. Some established players from other countries, including the Japanese shuttles, have felt it.

For example, Thailand’s mixed doubles team 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 scheduled for 9:00. HS Prannoy disclosed that Dechapol was at the venue as late as 11.30 pm the previous day for the medal ceremony for the team event.

More drainingly, Maya and Yuta themselves lost in the 2nd round, which was scheduled for the same day.

India’s Satwiksiraj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also highlighted scheduling issues after their shock first-round exit. After dominating the tag team competition, including wins 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 are going to happen. It’s going to be tense because it’s going to be difficult because we’re playing non-stop in a team event and we were here until 12 o’clock last night and we’re playing one of the good games right away. So it’s not going to be easy, but we’ve prepared,” Satwik said on Friday.

“CENTRAL” ASIAN GAMES IN JAPAN

Prannoy didn’t hold back when it came to assessing accommodation and the lack of a gaming village. For the first time at the Asian Games, accommodation is not centralized, but has been arranged in hotels in Aichi-Nagoya and temporary containers on a cruise ship that has been stationed in the city’s port.

“I never felt like 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 that you get to meet the rest of the players. There’s an opportunity to mingle with them. There’s an opportunity to talk to them. We only felt that when we went to the opening ceremony. We don’t generally go to the opening ceremony.”

“It was literally sad to be in that situation.

“In Hangzhou in 2023, it was amazing to see how China did it. It was probably my best experience. Then, in the next edition, three or four years from now, you expect it to be better, but it just went down. A lot of them had a difficult experience in terms of accommodation and transport.”

“It was an average event to be honest,” Prannoy said.

Despite the chaos, Indian fans will be rooting for PV Sindhu and Unnati Hooda, who will face local hope Akane Yamaguchi in the quarter-finals on Sunday. Unnati punched above her weight to defeat world number seven Putri Kusuma Wardani on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly continued their sensational run with a bronze medal at the World Championships. On Saturday, the Indian pair stunned world number three Yuki Fukushima and Mayu Matsumoto of Japan in straight games. It was their second win over Yuki and Mayu after defeating them in the women’s tag 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 quarterfinals on Sunday.

– The end