Olympic medallist PV Sindhu was the only Indian challenger left standing at the Japan Open 2026 badminton tournament after she reached the women’s singles quarter-finals at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium on Thursday.
PV Sindhu, currently 10th in the badminton rankings, defeated world No. 5 Han Yue of the People’s Republic of China 21-16, 21-14 in just 35 minutes to make the final eight.
The Indian badminton player will face home favourite and fellow former world champion Nozomi Okuhara for a spot in the semi-finals of the BWF Super 750 tournament on Friday.
Okuhara progressed after top seed An Se-young of the Republic of Korea withdrew from her second-round match.
“We’ve been playing together since we were young, since Under-19 I must say, and we’ve played a lot of times. I think tomorrow it’s going to be an exciting match,” Sindhu said about the upcoming match against Okuhara.
“Lately she’s also been doing well and she’s been having some good matches. She doesn’t have a match today because An Se-young has withdrawn. But I think for me, it’s important for me to go back and recover well and come back stronger tomorrow,” she added.
After a slow start in the opening game, PV Sindhu gradually found her rhythm and took control of the rallies, pulling ahead to claim the first game.
The Indian shuttler then carried that momentum into the second game, racing to an 8-0 lead and leaving Han Yue with little room to recover.
Although the Chinese player managed to cut the deficit briefly, Sindhu stayed composed, maintained her grip on the contest and wrapped up a convincing win to improve her head-to-head record to 8-1.
Earlier in the day, India’s mixed doubles pair of Dhruv Kapila and Tanisha Crasto bowed out after losing 22-20, 21-17 to Chinese top seeds Feng Yan Zhe and Huang Dong Ping in the pre-quarterfinals. The match lasted 47 minutes.
Sindhu and Kapila-Crasto were the only Indians who made the second round at the Japan Open.
Both Lakshya Sen and Ayush Shetty lost their opening-round matches while Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty were forced to retire hurt during their opener.
read more: https://www.olympics.com/en/news/japan-open-2026-badminton-india-day-3-report
