Badminton’s 2025 French Open, a Super 750 tournament, begins today at the Glaz Arena in Paris, the ‘City of Love’. All eyes will be on India’s favourite badminton duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty. The two have made a striking comeback after their Paris Olympics heartbreak followed by a year of injury struggles. As they stepped back into rhythm, their recent performances saw them climb back to the Top 10 in the world rankings after they reached the finals of the Hong Kong Masters, China Masters and also bagged a World Championship bronze. The World No. 6 duo also made it to the semi-finals in the recently concluded Denmark Open, where they lost against the Japanese pair of Yugo Kobayashi and Takuro Hoki in a hard fought three-game battle.
Paris is one of the duo’s favourite battlegrounds, having won the French Open title in 2022, the silver in 2019 and the World Championship bronze earlier this year. They will start their campaign against the Indonesian pairing of Muhammad Rian Ardianto and Rahmat Hidayat.
In the men’s singles category, the Indian spotlight will be on Lakshya Sen. The 24-year-old shuttler will start his French Open campaign against Ireland’s Nhat Nguyen; an opponent he beat in the Denmark Open last week. Indian badminton’s newest sensation, Ayush Shetty – who claimed the US Open Title in June this year – will face off against Japan’s Koki Watanabe.
In the Women’s Singles category, Anupama Upadhyay also faces a challenge against World No. 4 Han Yue (China). Unnati Hooda clashes with Malaysia’s Karupathevan Letshanaa. But it’s Anmol Kharb that has the toughest tournament opener as she faces World No. 1, Korea’s An Se-young.
In the Mixed Doubles, fans will expect the pair of Dhruv Kapila-Tanisha Crasto to go deep in their campaign after a string of good performances this year. Rohan Kapoor-Rutvika Shivani Gadde are also set to compete in the tournament.
In the Men’s Doubles category, Pruthvi Krishnamurthy Roy and Sai Pratheek K will participate and the Women’s Doubles is set to witness an all-Indian first round match between Kavipriya Selvam-Simran Singh and Rutuparna Panda-Swetaparna Panda.