India has officially opened its medal tally at the World University Games in Rhine-Ruhr, Germany, with a historic bronze medal in badminton. The mixed team badminton squad secured the nation's first-ever medal in the sport at this prestigious university-level competition. This achievement marks a significant milestone for Indian badminton on the international stage.
The Indian team's journey to the bronze medal included a dominant start, a tough loss, and a decisive quarterfinal victory. In the quarter-finals, the team displayed great resilience, securing a 3-2 win against Malaysia. According to tournament rules, both losing semi-finalists are awarded bronze medals. In the semi-final match against Chinese Taipei, India lost 3-1. Devika Sihag was the only point scorer, winning her women's singles match against Huang Ching Ping. Sathish Kumar Karunakaran lost his men's singles match, and the men's and women's doubles pairs also lost their matches. China and Chinese Taipei will compete in the final.
The team, led by Sathish Kumar Karunakaran, includes Devika Sihag, Saneeth Dayanand, Tasnim Mir, Varshini Viswanath Sri, and Vaishnavi Khadkekar. In earlier rounds, India defeated the USA 3-1 in the round of 16 and recorded a 5-0 victory against Macau China. They also experienced a narrow 3-2 defeat against Hong Kong China in the group stage.
With this bronze medal, India is currently in joint 29th position in the medal standings. Over 300 Indian athletes are participating in the Rhine-Ruhr 2025 Games, including Paris 2024 Olympian Jeswin Aldrin and Asian Games medalists Ancy Sojan and Praveen Chithravel.
The 32nd edition of the FISU World University Games, is being held from July 16 to 27 and features 18 sports. India's best performance at the World University Games was at Chengdu 2023, where they finished seventh with 26 medals, including 11 gold medals, with shooting contributing significantly to the medal tally.
In other events at the World University Games 2025, swimmer Srihari Nataraj broke the Best Indian Time in the men's 100m freestyle, clocking 49.46 seconds and qualifying for the semi-finals. He broke Virdhawal Khade's 16-year-old record of 49.47 seconds from the 2008 Guangzhou Asian Games.
