Most of the 2025 Asian Badminton Mixed Team Championships currently being staged in Qingdao are second-tier players, however, China's main player and former Olympic women's singles champion Chen Yufei returned to the competition, while India's former women's singles champion Sindhu withdrew before the provisional tournament due to injury.

Former Olympic women's singles champion Chen Yufei took a long vacation after the Paris Olympics and regained her love for badminton after recharging

Chen Yufei suspended her badminton career after losing to He Bingjiao in the quarterfinals of the Paris Olympics last August. The Tokyo 2020 Women's Singles champion felt she needed to take a break in order to rediscover her love for the sport. During this vacation, Chen Yufei studied English in Australia for 10 weeks. Now, she has regained her love for badminton and is ready to return to badminton.

The 26-year-old Women's Singles star is hoping to use the Asian Team Championships as a warm-up for the All England Championships in Birmingham from 11-16 March. In an interview with the BWF, she said: "I miss playing badminton and seeing everyone compete at the World Tour Finals last December, I want to get back on the field. I'm 26 years old and I've only played badminton. I wanted to try something different, but now I'm ready to focus on my professional badminton career again. ”

Chen Yufei will play an important role for the hosts in the team event, as she and women's doubles ace Chen Qingchen are the two senior players selected for the team. Defending champions China have opted to feature some of the best young players, including 2024 World Junior Singles champions Hu Zhe'an and Xu Wenjing. China narrowly defeated Singapore 3-2 in the first game of Group A, and the second game will be against Chinese Taipei.

India, meanwhile, will have to play without its top women's singles striker Sindhu, who withdrew from the tournament due to a hamstring problem. Sindhu said on social media: "I am sad to say that I will not be participating in the Asian Mixed Team Championships with the team. "I felt a little tingling in my hamstring during training and despite my efforts to recover, the scans showed that my recovery took a little longer than I initially expected."

Although India is missing Sindhu, India still has a number of good players, including Men's Singles Rasasen, Men's Doubles Savisela and Zila, and Women's Doubles Theresa and Gayatri. In this tournament, India is listed in Group D along with South Korea and Macao, China.