NEW DELHI, INDIA — Thom Gicquel and Delphine Delrue beat China’s world No. 1 pair in three games to secure the first world championship title in French badminton history.
Thom Gicquel and Delphine Delrue became France’s first badminton world champions on Sunday, defeating China’s Feng Yan Zhe and Huang Dong Ping 22-20, 19-21, 21-15 in the mixed-doubles final in New Delhi.
The fifth-seeded French pair overcame the top-ranked Chinese duo in a three-game final at the Indira Gandhi Arena, converting what had already been France’s first appearance in a World Championships final into the country’s first gold medal at the tournament.
The breakthrough came after years of steady progress for a partnership that had already won the 2024 European title, captured a World Championships bronze medal in Paris in 2025 and established itself among the leading mixed-doubles combinations on the international circuit.
Their victory also began an extraordinary final day for French badminton. Later Sunday, Alex Lanier defeated Japan’s Kodai Naraoka 21-11, 21-11 to become the first French player to win the men’s singles world championship, giving France two titles on a day when it had entered the tournament without a world gold in any discipline.
French pair overturns a difficult history against China
Gicquel and Delrue entered the final facing both the world’s top-ranked partnership and an unfavorable head-to-head record.
French reporting said Feng and Huang had defeated them in each of their four previous meetings. This time, the French pair stayed with the Chinese through a tightly contested opening game and edged it 22-20 before Feng and Huang responded 21-19 in the second.
The deciding game separated the teams more clearly.
Gicquel and Delrue established control and maintained enough distance through the closing exchanges to take the decider 21-15, completing the biggest result of their careers.
The result carried additional weight because Feng and Huang were not the only elite Chinese combination the French pair had to defeat in New Delhi.
In Saturday’s semifinal, Gicquel and Delrue lost the opening game against China’s second-seeded Jiang Zhen Bang and Wei Ya Xin before reversing the match 19-21, 21-13, 21-11. The French pair opened the deciding game with a remarkable 12-0 run, according to the French Badminton Federation.
That victory had already made them the first French players to qualify for a Badminton World Championships final. Twenty-four hours later, they went one step further.
A breakthrough built over several seasons
Sunday’s title was not an isolated upset.
Gicquel and Delrue have competed together for about a decade and have spent recent seasons establishing themselves in the world top 10. Their results increasingly suggested they could challenge the strongest Asian pairs rather than merely compete with them.
They won the European Championships in 2024 and then reached another level in 2025, winning the Indonesia Open — one of badminton’s highest-level World Tour events — before taking bronze at the World Championships in Paris.
That Paris medal had itself been historic. It was France’s first World Championships medal in doubles and gave the pair direct experience of the later stages of the sport’s biggest annual championship.
Their 2026 season added further evidence of consistency. In March, they won the Orléans Masters by beating Denmark’s Mathias Christiansen and Alexandra Bøje 21-19, 21-13, with tournament organizers listing the French pair at world No. 5.
The New Delhi run nevertheless required another step forward: victories over the No. 2 Chinese seeds in the semifinal and the world No. 1 pair in the final.
France moves into unfamiliar territory at world level
For much of the World Championships’ history, France had remained outside the group of countries winning titles.
The competition was first staged in 1977, and before the 2026 edition no French player had reached a final. Gicquel and Delrue changed that on Saturday before becoming the country’s first champions Sunday.
Mixed doubles in particular has long featured formidable Asian programs, with China repeatedly producing leading combinations at Olympic and world level. Defeating the top two Chinese seeds in consecutive matches therefore gave the French title a significance beyond simply taking advantage of an open draw.
It also provided evidence of greater competitive depth within French badminton.
The national federation entered Sunday with two finalists after Lanier also qualified for the men’s singles championship match. His subsequent victory over Naraoka turned Gicquel and Delrue’s breakthrough into the first half of a two-gold day for France.
That broader context matters when assessing what Sunday could mean for the French program. One world title can result from an exceptional player or partnership; two titles in different disciplines on the same day point to a wider competitive advance.
Gold completes Gicquel and Delrue’s progression
For Gicquel and Delrue, the immediate achievement is more straightforward.
They arrived in New Delhi as established international contenders, already European champions and world bronze medalists. They leave as the first French pair to win a Badminton World Championships title and as a partnership that defeated the two highest-seeded Chinese teams on the final weekend.
The title also changes the benchmark for French badminton. A country that entered the 2026 championships having never produced a world finalist finished Sunday with champions in both mixed doubles and men’s singles.
For Gicquel and Delrue, years spent moving from European contention into the world elite have now produced the defining result of their partnership: a world championship gold earned against the No. 1 pair in the sport.
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