Indian shuttler Ayush Shetty will open his World Championships campaign against defending champion and top seed Shi Yu Qi of China at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Arena in New Delhi, after Wednesday’s draw pitted the unseeded Ayush Shetty against the world No. 1. Ayush, making his tournament debut, has lost all three previous meetings with Shi, most recently an 8-21, 10-21 defeat in the Asian Championships final. The draw repeats a script India knows painfully well: Lakshya Sen faced the same opponent in the same round of last year’s World Championships and lost 17-21, 19-21, though he would later avenge that defeat against Shi at the All England Championships this year.
There is a particular cruelty to badminton’s draw ceremonies, the way they can hand a young player his toughest possible test before he has even had the chance to settle into a tournament. For Ayush Shetty, that moment arrived on a Wednesday in New Delhi, in front of a home crowd he will now have to win over from the very first match rather than build towards it. The parallel to Lakshya Sen’s experience twelve months ago is impossible to ignore, and yet it is also, in its own way, a strange kind of validation: India’s best young talents keep finding themselves across the net from the man they must eventually beat if they want to be taken seriously at the top of the sport.
New Delhi, India: The Badminton World Championships will run from August 17-23 at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Arena, and the draw held on August 5 has already produced one of the standout ties of the opening round. Shi Yu Qi, the defending champion and top seed, will not have to wait to be tested. Ayush Shetty, unseeded and playing in his maiden World Championships, will provide the examination immediately.
A rivalry that has so far belonged to one man
The head-to-head between these two is stark. Ayush has faced Shi three times and lost on each occasion, with the most recent meeting the most instructive: an 8-21, 10-21 defeat in the Asian Championships final, a match that showcased just how thoroughly the Chinese star can control proceedings when he is at his sharpest.
The Lakshya Sen precedent
India has been here before, and recently. Lakshya Sen was drawn against Shi Yu Qi in the opening round of last year’s World Championships and lost 17-21, 19-21, a defeat that at the time looked like further confirmation of Shi’s dominance over India’s leading men. The story did not end there. Sen returned to beat Shi at the All England Championships earlier this year, a result that proved the Chinese No. 1 is not unbeatable and that Indian shuttlers arriving at major tournaments now carry evidence, not just hope, that the gap can be closed.
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That precedent matters for how Ayush’s own challenge should be read. This is not a case of an Indian player being fed to the world’s best simply to make up the numbers. It is the second consecutive edition in which the draw has forced an early reckoning, and the second time an Indian player has had the chance to use that reckoning as a springboard rather than a setback.
Form lines worth watching
Shi Yu Qi arrives in New Delhi as defending champion and top seed, but his 2026 has been less commanding than his ranking suggests. The Asian Championships remains his only title of the year so far, and reports have noted a dip in his usual sharpness in recent weeks. For a player of Ayush’s ambition, that is precisely the kind of opening that turns a daunting draw into a genuine opportunity.
Ayush, for his part, had previously managed an elbow injury but says he will be at 100% fitness for the World Championships.
What comes next
Beyond this single tie, the draw has already thrown up other significant storylines in New Delhi, with Paris 2024 Olympic champion An Seyoung, the women’s top seed, set to open against Bulgaria’s Kaloyana Nalbantova. But it is the Ayush-Shi encounter that will draw the most attention when the tournament begins on August 17, with home support behind an unseeded debutant attempting to do what Lakshya Sen could not manage on this same stage last year. Win or lose, the outcome will shape how India’s next generation of singles players is judged heading into the remainder of the season — and if Sen’s turnaround at the All England Championships is any guide, a first-round exit here would be far from the final word.
