Week of September 18, 2026
- Dutch Eredivisie season opens. Round 1 is in the books: Almere beat a rebuilt Drop Shot 5-3, and DKC edged Smashing 5-3 behind a winning debut from new signing Lieke Van Parys.
Read more - Dutch International tournament is coming back. Badminton Nederland confirmed it returns to the international calendar from 2027, relocating to Almelo in Overijssel — a home-soil ranking-points event for Dutch players.
Read more - Asian Games badminton starts Sept 20. Squads were finalized this week for the continent’s biggest multi-sport event, running through the 29th in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan.
Read more - Satwik-Chirag back in the world’s top 3. India’s Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty won the Singapore Open and then fought back to take a historic China Masters title, ending a two-year title drought in men’s doubles.
Read more - BWF’s synthetic shuttlecock trials, six months in. Since June, synths have been tested at four tournaments spanning different levels; BWF says results are “getting quite close” to elite standard but there’s no fixed deadline for wider rollout. Worth watching if your club is weighing training-shuttle costs.
Read more - European Junior Championships: the order is shifting. France topped the medal table (including a boys’ singles gold for Mady Sow) at the Tatabánya championships in August, ending Denmark’s recent grip on European junior badminton.
Read more - Dutch club badminton’s money problem, out in the open. A recent BadmintonInside breakdown put a number on something most Dutch clubs already feel: clubs spend roughly €40,000–€50,000 a season while the Eredivisie’s total prize pool sits at just €900 — part of why top domestic players keep drifting to foreign circuits.
Read more - Arctic Open next stop on the European swing. The BWF World Tour heads to Vantaa, Finland, October 6–11 — one to keep on the radar for the autumn European leg.
Read more - Badminton Nederland’s 2026 trainer courses. An overview of this year’s coaching qualification pathways for anyone on staff — or a parent — considering formal certification.
Read more - New research on injury patterns in young players. A scoping review in Frontiers in Sports and Active Living mapped injury risk across youth and adolescent badminton players — the basis for the parent tip below.
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A tip for parents: watch the hours, not just the wins.
That injury review found risk climbs sharply once training crosses roughly 2.5 hours a day, with shoulder pain the clearest warning sign — and the injury pattern actually shifts with age: younger kids (7–12) tend to pick up acute injuries, while older teens (15–18), often deep into early specialization, develop overuse injuries in the ankle, knee and shoulder instead. If your child is winning and a coach wants to raise their hours, that’s the moment to ask what the weekly load looks like against the club’s own guidelines — not after soreness becomes a pattern. Multi-sport athleticism and real recovery days aren’t time lost from development; at this age, they’re part of it.