Review of the India Open 2025 Singles!

It is impossible to keep track of all the badminton results and news from every tournament on the world tour. No worries, we have you covered with our India Open 2025 review summary!

Stay up to date with all the important moments.

The Men’s Singles!

The Men’s singles in Delhi threw up some great matchups that lived up to expectations, growing rivalries and providing exciting upsets. Many players even outside of the top 10 are capable of beating the top seeds. Before play was underway in Delhi we predicted the Great Dane, Viktor Axelsen, would take the title.

The R32 in India was very competitive. One of our players to watch in 2025, Alex Lanier, had his rematch with Kunlavut Vitidsarn. Another epic 3-set showdown this time going to Alex Lanier who dealt with the conditions better and adjusted his plans well since Malaysia. This is building into a very nice rivalry between the players and one we want to see more of.

Our Highlights

In the R32 Jun Hao Leong beat sixth seed Li Shi Feng in a competitive 3-set match. He is showing some good signs, beating good players, but he is still inconsistent. He was beaten in the R16 by Hong Yang Weng. We can see him growing in confidence with every tournament so there could be good things to come this year.

We saw Jonathan Christie recover from his poor performance in Malaysia, a R32 loss to Toma jr Popov. The Indonesian shuttler was able to steady his game, taking out three Chinese Taipei players on his way to the semifinals. His old foe Viktor Axelsen was once again the player who dispatched him from the competition in a simple 3-set match. We would say he met expectations.

Further into the week, we saw Kiran George gun down the French Prodigy Alex Lanier, in the R16, in straight sets. A big upset in our book with Lanier’s momentum and taking down so many strong players recently. Kiran Couldn’t keep it up with a loss in the QF to Hong Yang Weng. Could this be a turning point for the 24-year-old Indian?

The hometown players were generally disappointing, except for Kiran George as previously mentioned. The other four players were all knocked out in the first round. Kidambi didn’t play his first-round match giving his opponent a walk-over. HS Prannoy and Lakshya Sen were both beaten by similar-ranked opponents.

Cheuk Yiu Lee was the surprise package of the India Open. He swiftly beat Koki Watanabe before bumping out Toma Jr. Popov in a tough match. That wasn’t even the end of his run beating Chou Tien Chen in the Quarter Final. He actually ended up in the final in Delhi!

Who won the India Open 2025 men’s singles?

On to the top dogs. The final was between our pick, Viktor Axelsen, who beat the forever patchy Jonatan Christie in the semi-finals. His opponent was the unseeded Cheuk Yiu Lee who downed Chinese hopeful Hong Yang Weng in a tough 3-set semi-final. Interestingly these two faced off in the R32 in the Malaysia Open the week before, the Hong Kong native coming out victorious. In India was saw a different more confident and more focused Viktor Axelsen, still not at his best but surely holding a grudge from their previous match. This saw Axelsen through the match comfortably 21-16 21-8.

Another correct pick for Badminton Speak in our predictions!

We also identified Toma Jr Popov as one to watch, our outside favourite for the tournament. he didn’t quite live up to our hopes of a semi-final losing out in the R16, again. However his matches are fast becoming our favourites with tense 3-set matches so common for him, whether he wins or loses. So we would give him the award for the most entertaining player in our opinion.

A Review of the India Open 2025 Women’s Singles

The Women’s Singles has become somewhat easy to predict. As we said in last week’s review we already know who one finalist will be. The undeniable Korean Queen of badminton, An Se Young. She is so far ahead of everyone else on the tour right now, everyone else has to hope she has a terrible day or just fight for second place.

The highlights from Delhi…

Hometown favourite PV Sindhu gave the crowds something to cheer. She showed glimpses of her former self but couldn’t keep it going consistently. She dominated her R32 against Shuo Yun Sung of Chinese Taipei and R16 against Manami Suizu. It was the QF where she lost out to fourth seed Gregoria Tunjung of Indonesia, even then giving her a good fight losing out 21-9 19-21 21-17. We still see PV Sindhu struggling this season, there are big questions over whether she can get back to her best.

So who opposed the Korean queen in the final?

As we predicted! An Se Young in the final at the India Open 2025, she had a simple win against Tunjung 21-19 21-16 in the semi-final. So who was her opposition this time? Pornpawee Chochuwong of Thailand rose from the bottom half of the draw to face the Korean. In her semi-final, Chochuwong had a tough battle with Japanese starlet Tomoka Miyazaki. A very even match that either could have won, but the Thai came out victorious 11-21 24-22 21-19. Perhaps this tough match was the reason that An Se Young swept Chochuwong aside 21-12 21-9.

A fun fact, An Se Young is yet to drop a set in her first two tournaments of the year!

We were close, in some respects. We selected Thai player Pornpicha CHOEIKEEWONG, she had played well in Kuala Lumpur the week before but wasn’t able to bring that to Delhi as she was dominated by her younger opponent Miyazaki of Japan 21-5 22-24 21-9. A disappointing result for a promising player, we backed the wrong Thai player.

The top story from India!

Mia Blichfeldt was very outspoken after she departed from India. Her Instagram post was a stern message to the BWF and BAI about the poor facilities and playing conditions.

This was compounded by her post-match interview with the BWF Media team…

“That night (Tuesday) was terrible. The only sleep I got was in the morning because I kept throwing up all night. I’m really tired now and my body is really dead,” Blichfeldt told BWF after her round of 16 defeat. It’s not so nice for me, but I’m happy with the match I pulled yesterday and the outcome today but I wish I could have gone to court at 100 percent. It happened Tuesday evening. It took a lot of mental work (to get on court). It’s really frustrating when you’ve been training to come to these tournaments and then this is one of the things that stops you from performing.”

Mia Blichfeldt

BAI Secretary Sanjay Mishra responded, “As the host and staging authority for the Yonex Sunrise India Open, the Badminton Association of India gains access to the stadium and its infrastructure only four days before the event, which poses significant logistical challenges.”

For us at Badminton Speak, this is hardly surprising. We visited the India Open in 2024 as spectators during the first round of the tournament. The facilities in Delhi are very poor with poorly covered doorways creating drift, birds in the roof of the venue, toilet facilities that don’t work, and difficulty just getting to the venue which is quite isolated.

Mia was not the only one to comment on the conditions. French mixed doubles player Thom Gicquel made similar comments in the media zone of the India Open 2025 “The playing hall is pretty nice,” he commented, “But the weather is pretty cold here in Delhi and the pollution is really high right now, so it’s not easy to play, not the best conditions to play in.”

Are the European players too soft, are the conditions at Indian tournaments up to international standards… Tell us in the comments!