India's beach kabaddi men and women march into the Sanya semi-finals with two wins from two
India have made the Asian Beach Games 2026 group stage look like a routine warm-up. The men's beach kabaddi side beat Thailand for a second straight win, the women followed up by getting past Syria, and both teams now sit on top of their groups with semi-final places effectively booked.
The men opened on April 23 with a 66-23 thrashing of Chinese Taipei in Group B. Thailand on Friday was a different test on paper but ended in another comfortable Indian win, leaving the side unbeaten with one Group fixture left. India play Sri Lanka in their final group game on April 25.
Group A done in two outings for the women
The women had even less work to do. Group A was a three-team pool with Sri Lanka and Syria, and India needed only one win to make the semi-finals. They got that on day one with a 44-32 result against Sri Lanka, and the win over Syria a day later was about playing time and rotation rather than survival.
India's women's squad in Sanya is built around Ritu, Simran Kamboj, Manisha Kumari, Nikita Chauhan, Manpreet Kaur and Nikita. The men, in addition to Choudhary, have Jitendra Yadav, Yatharth Deswal, Jay Bhagwan, Neeraj and Bhanu Pratap Tomar in the touring party. Both squads are part of the wider 31-member Indian contingent that travelled to China for the games.
A small tournament with a clear ceiling
The pool sizes here mean the knockouts arrive quickly. Eight men's teams across two groups, top two through. The women's bracket is even tighter. Both Indian teams will know their semi-final opponents over the next 48 hours, with the finals scheduled for April 27 to wrap up the kabaddi event in Sanya.
Beach kabaddi is the smaller cousin of the indoor game, played four-a-side on a sand court with shorter raids and a reduced playing area. India have historically been the side everyone else looks to beat at Asian Beach Games kabaddi events, and after two days the pattern looks unchanged.
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