HS Prannoy secured his maiden BWF World Tour title
The Indian duo needed just 35 minutes to beat Lu Ming-Che and Tang Kai-Wei of Chinese Taipei in the semi-finals of the Super 500 tournament.
Lakshya Sen dished out a badminton masterpiece to notch up his second BWF Super 500 title with a straight-game win over Li Shi Feng of China in the final.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Wednesday
Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy bagged the biggest title of their career, winning the French Open Super 750 crown with a straight-game decimation of Chinese Taipei's Lu Ching Yao and Yang Po Han in the men's doubles final in Paris on Sunday.
Satwik and Chirag, ranked sixth in the world, will face the winner of the other semi-final between Indonesia's Pramudya Kusumawardana and Yeremia Erich Yoche Yacob Rambitan and second seeds Aaron Chia and Wooi Yik Soh of Malaysia in their maiden World Tour Super 1000 final.
Lakshya Sen's woeful run continued as he made a first round exit
Facing each other for the first time in seven months after their heated Denmark Open semifinal clash, the double Olympic medalist Indian reeled off five successive points to take the opening game.
India's Tokyo Paralympics gold winner Pramod Bhagat was on Thursday named among six shuttlers for the Male Para Badminton Player of the Year by the sport's world body but none of his compatriots featured in the able-bodied awards' categories.
The Indian badminton team returned empty-handed from the Olympics for the first time in over a decade.
HS Prannoy had almost given up on winning his next title and breaking a six-year long drought before chief national coach Pullela Gopichand instilled in him the belief.
Kiran George wins Indonesia Masters to grab second super 100 title
Parupalli Kashyap advanced to the men's singles quarter-finals at the Korea Open after a hard-earned victory over Malaysia's Daren Liew, in Incheon, on Thursday. The Indian shuttler prevailed 21-17, 11-21, 21-12 in 56 minutes.
'I want to take Durga Maa's blessings and achieve a lot more'
The 26-year-old is now the lone Indian survivor in the BWF World Tour Super 750 tournament.
Lakshya Sen said the win against reigning All England Champion Li Shi Feng gives him confidence and belief in the Olympic qualification year.
This was the third title for the Indian duo -- they had clinched the Abu Dhabi Masters Super 100 and Nantes International Challenge this year.
PV Sindhu still has the hunger to succeed, and the primary aim is to help her regain consistency, says her new coach Anup Sridhar, who has been roped in by the two-time Olympic medallist on a trial basis following the Paris Games.
India cruised to a 3-0 win over minnows South Africa to progress to the semifinals
Sen, who had emulated his mentor Prakash Padukone by winning the World championship bronze in Huelva, Spain last month, will now look to claim the All England Championships in March.
The Badminton World Federation (BWF), in a statement, said the escalation of the COVID-19 outbreak globally forced it to cancel or postpone all tournaments from March 16 to April 12.
India's Lakshya Sen won his second successive BWF World Tour Super 100 title with a thrilling victory over China's Weng Hong Yang in the final of the SaarLorLux Open, in Saarbrucken, Germany, on Sunday.
World No. 15 Sindhu, who will be eyeing her third Olympic medal at the Paris Games in two months time, will face second seed and world no. 7 Wang Zhi Yi of China in the summit clash.
With five titles under his belt, Lakshya Sen was racing towards the top echelons of international badminton before his stunning run was halted by the coronavirus pandemic, which brought all sporting action to a halt across the world. With the world in lockdown to contain the deadly disease, Lakshya too is enduring the uncertain times within the confines of his apartment, near the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy (PPBA) in Bengaluru.
The apex body had also announced that ranking points earned at tournaments during the original qualification phase will be maintained.
India's top shuttler P V Sindhu is targetting peak form during the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games this year to ensure that she clinches the two titles missing from her cabinet.
In the mixed doubles event, Satwiksairak Rankreddy and Ashwini Ponnappa started their campaign on a winning note. The duo beat the German combine of Marvin Seidel and Linda Efler in straight games 21-14, 31-19.
I don't want to respond to what her father has to say, if Sindhu says something, I will respond, Gopichand retorts to PV Sindhu's father's allegations of unsatisfactory training.
World champion shuttler P V Sindhu on Thursday donated Rs 5 lakh each to the Chief Minister's Relief Funds of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh to fight the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed over 21,000 lives globally. The number of positive cases in India has surpassed the 600-mark, while 13 deaths have been reported so far, prompting the government to put the country under lockdown till April 14 to halt the spread of the virus.
Lakshya Sen, his father and physio reached Bangalore, Dey and Jayaram took a flight from Frankfurt to Delhi.
P V Sindhu has made early exits in as many as seven of the 12 BWF World Tour events this year.
Sindhu, Sen look to regain lost touch in Canada Open
The star Indian pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy will be the key attraction in the men's doubles category. However, they are set to face a stiff competition as the line-up includes the three-time world champion and world No. 2 Indonesian duo of Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan alongside another Indonesian pair of Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto, who are currently ranked eighth in the world.
Placed at number 10 in the Race to Guanzhou rankings, Srikanth needed to win the tournament to have any hopes of qualifying for the season-ending World Tour Final in December.
After a string of disappointing results, PV Sindhu parted ways with coach Park Tae Sang
Rejuvenated after a month-long break from a hectic BWF schedule, Sindhu and Srikanth prevailed over Japanese shuttlers Aya Ohori and Kenta Nishimoto in women's and men's singles respectively.
HS Prannoy went down fighting to World No 7 Japanese Kodai Naraoka in a thrilling quarter-final at the Malaysia Open Super 750 badminton tournament.
In an open letter, BWF secretary general Thomas Lund said the decision to go ahead with the All England Championships was made based on the best advice at that time. "It has been very disappointing to see some members of the badminton community speculate on the sincerity and motives of the BWF in this time of crisis," Lund wrote.
The Indians, who were also Asian champions, defeated the current world champions in 43 minutes.
Sindhu hardly had to break a sweat as she posted a comfortable 21-14 21-7 win over the third seeded Japanese shuttler in just 44 minutes.
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