A first for French badminton
No French player had ever reached world No. 1 in badminton until Sunday. Christo Popov, 24, changed that by winning the French Open at Tremblay-en-France, beating Indonesia’s Zaki Ubaidillah in the final. He did not make the ranking a priority for the week, and it arrived anyway.
The route to the top was short. Popov broke into the world top ten for the first time in August 2025 and has not left it since. In between came the biggest titles of his career: he became the first French player to win the World Tour Finals last December, took the European title in April, and collected his first Super 750 trophy at the Japan Open in July.
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From Sofia to Fos-sur-Mer
The story starts in Bulgaria. Popov arrived in France as a baby with his brother Toma Junior, after their father Toma, a former Bulgarian professional and national team coach, joined the French setup in 2003 and settled the family in Fos-sur-Mer, in the south of France. Toma still coaches his son in a small gym there, roughly 800 kilometres from Sunday’s venue.
The résumé was building long before this week. Popov was junior world runner-up in 2019, junior European champion a year later and world No. 1 among juniors in 2020, the year he won his first French senior singles title at 17. He also plays doubles with Toma Junior, with whom he won the European title in 2025.
Badminton has been dominated for decades by Asian nations and Denmark. A left-hander from the Bouches-du-Rhône sitting above all of them is new,, and it lands as the sport looks toward the 2028 Games.
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