India’s PV Sindhu lost to reigning Olympic and world champion An Se Young of the Republic of Korea in the women’s singles final at the French Open 2026 badminton tournament on Sunday.
Two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu, 11th in the women’s badminton rankings, went down to world No. 1 An Se Young 16-21, 21-11, 21-12 in just over an hour at the Arena Grand Paris.
Sindhu has now lost all 11 of her head-to-head matches against An Se Young, who extended her winning streak to 50 matches with Sunday’s victory.
The South Korean boasts a 66-1 record in 2026 and the French Open was her 10th title this year.
The Indian badminton player, meanwhile, was aiming to win her seventh career World Tour title and the second of the season after the Japan Open back in July.
The first game saw An Se Young and PV Sindhu go toe-to-toe in the early exchanges with the lead continuously shifting between the two shuttlers. However, with the score at 11-all, it was Sindhu who gradually broke free.
Sindhu used her reach and court sense brilliantly to frustrate the South Korean ace and took the lead. It was only the second time that Sindhu had taken a game from An Se Young in 11 meetings.
The previous instance came in the quarter-finals of the 2023 Badminton Asia Championships, where Sindhu took the opener before An Se Young recovered to win 18-21, 21-5, 21-9.
An Se Young, the top seed, responded immediately in the second game. The South Korean shuttler led 11-7 at the break before doubling down and restoring parity in the match.
The decider saw Sindhu keep up with An Se Young in the early exchanges but the Indian shuttler eventually ran out of steam.
An Se Young picked up six consecutive points to race to a 15-9 lead in the match and secured her fourth French Open badminton crown fairly comfortably from that point on.
Aparna Popat, in 1998, was the last Indian woman to win the French Open crown. Saina Nehwal had finished runner-up in 2012.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty are the most recent French Open champions from India, having bagged the men’s doubles title in 2024. The duo was knocked out in the opening round this year.
read more: https://www.olympics.com/en/news/french-open-2026-badminton-final-pv-sindhu-vs-an-se-young-report
