Olympic silver medallist P V Sindhu is set to fly out of London on Sunday -- she will reach Bangkok via Doha.
All-England and World champion Carolina Marin beat Indian ace Saina Nehwal to win the 'Female Player of the Year' award in Dubai on Monday night. Besides, Saina, Marin, who won five World Superseries titles, held off competition from China's Zhao Yunlei and Bao Yixin.
Sindhu won 12-21, 23-21, 21-19 in the women's singles quarter-finals match that lasted 71 minutes.
Despite clinching the Macau Open title for the third time, India's ace shuttler P V Sindhu remained static at 12th position in the latest BWF world ranking released on Thursday. Saina Nehwal also held on to her number two position but a poor run of form saw K Srikanth lose a spot and slip to World No. 9.
Defending champion PV Sindhu suffered a straight-game defeat to Tai Tzu Ying while Srikanth assured himself of a medal.
Earlier this month, Sindhu had attained her career-best world number two ranking after clinching her maiden India Open Super Series title.
The 29-year-old Saina, an Olympic bronze medallist, had finished runner-up in the tournament last year, losing to Chinese Taipei's Tai Tzu-Ying in the final.
With the coronavirus pandemic halting all sport activities, India's former chief badminton coach Vimal Kumar on Tuesday urged the government to allow the Olympic-bound athletes to continue their training after conducting the required tests. Following the respective directives of the Talengana and Karnataka governments, the Pullela Gopichand academy in Hyderbad and Prakash Padukone Academy in Bangalore have been shut down for two weeks.
The accident took place just after Momota had won the Malaysia Masters title.
Paralympics gold medallist Pramod Bhagat attributed his calm on-court demeanour under pressure to the inspiration he took from the sportsmanship and graceful behaviour exhibited by the iconic cricketer Sachin Tendulkar in his career.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa notched up an upset win over the World No 8 and second-seeded Indonesian pair of Hafiz Faizal and Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja in the opening round.
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.
After breaking into the elite zone of top-10 players, ace shuttler Saina Nehwal became the first Indian woman shuttler to be named most promising player of the year by the Badminton World Federation.
The London Olympic bronze medallist will face either Denmark's Line Christophersen or compatriot Ira Sharma for a place in the finals at the Super 100 event, which is a part of BWF's revised Olympic qualification events.
He was hailed as the next big thing when he shocked five-time world and two-time Olympic champion, Lin Dan in the final of China Open Super Series Premier event, a performance that also held out promise of a medal at the Rio Olympics.
Sindhu had resumed training last month under the supervision of Korean coach Park Tae-Sang after the Sports Authority of India
Rio Olympic silver medallist Sindhu, who made early exits at the China Open and Korea Open, dropped to the 6th spot after five months and the former World No 2 shuttler will look to make amends at the Denmark Open and French Open.
'The last five years have been great, it has been a lovely journey. There have been lots of ups and down but I have learnt a lot, experienced a lot, improved a lot.'
Top shuttlers Ashwini Ponnappa and Lakshya Sen are among 20-odd Indian players who have started training at the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy (PPBA) in Bengaluru as the sport took its first step towards resumption after the COVID-19 hiatus. Confined to their homes for more than two months due to the nationwide lockdown to contain the health crisis, the shuttlers started training at PPBA after the Sports Authority of India (SAI) laid down rules for resumption of training late last month.
The Indian duo ran-up a 7-2 lead early on, before entering the break at 11-7. Satwik and Chirag continued to move ahead and eventually grabbed the opening game.
Sourabh will next face Korea's Heo Kwang Hee for a place in the men's singles final.
It was Sindhu's third successive loss to Marin, who had won both the Super 1000 events in Thailand in January before finishing runners-up at the HSBC BWF World Tour Finals.
The unseeded Indian duo stunned local favourites Li Jun Hui and Liu Yu Chen 21-19, 21-15 in a 43-minute quarter-final clash.
Lee Chong Wei's indefinite suspension for a doping violation will cost the Malaysian his top ranking with Chinese world champion Chen Long set to take over on Thursday.
Srikanth blew two game points in the second game to lose 7-21, 20-22 to Axelsen in the men's singles summit clash.
The 28-year-old from Kerala had spent two weeks stressing over his physical and mental health after contracting COVID-19 last November.
The new BWF rule which makes wearing skirts on court mandatory for female shuttlers from May 1 is something that the Indian eves are finding it a bit uncomfortable.
The Indian ace, who attained a career-best No 1 after winning the India Open at the end of March, dropped a rung in the latest Badminton World Federation (BWF) rankings, released on Thursday. Defeat in the semi-finals of the Malaysia Open Super Series Premier to reigning Olympic champion Li Xuerui of China saw the London Olympics bronze medallist drop to No 2.
Ace shuttler Saina Nehwal is currently in a tight spot in her bid for a Tokyo Olympics singles berth but a couple of good performances in the coming weeks can put her back in contention, her mentor Parupalli Kashyap said on Friday. Saina, a 2015 World Championship silver medallist and two-time Commonwealth Games champion, is racing against time to make the cut for her fourth successive Olympics.
For seven years, Lee Chong Wei, one of badminton's finest athletes, took cordyceps tablets from unmarked containers on the advice of a mysterious friend without any knowledge of how they were capsulated or stored.
World Championships bronze medallist Lakshya Sen and men's doubles combination of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy registered contrasting victories to reach their first Yonex-Sunrise India Open 2022 final, while PV Sindhu was knocked out, in New Delhi on Saturday.
World champion P V Sindhu frittered away a one-game lead and lost 21-16, 16-21, 19-21 to Japan's Sayaka Takahashi in 66 minutes.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Tuesday
Rankireddy and Shetty, who created history on Sunday by becoming the first Indian men's doubles pair to win a BWF Super 500 tournament, are placed ninth in the men's doubles rankings issued on Tuesday.
Sindhu dished out a compact game to outwit Sayaka 21-17, 21-16 in a second round match on Thursday to set up a clash with seventh seeded Chinese He Bingjiao.
PV Sindhu recorded a consolation win over China's He Bingjiao in the third Group A match to end her campaign on a positive note
Thai shuttler Bodin Issara has been suspended by his club Granular until the end of the year for his on-court punch-up with former doubles partner Maneepong Jongjit during Sunday's Canada Open final, local media reported on Saturday.
Bodin Issara was banned for two years by the Badminton Association of Thailand (BAT) for physical assault after his ugly on-court brawl with former doubles partner Maneepong Jongjit during the final of the Canada Open last week.
The lack of competitions before the Olympics is a major concern for Indian shuttlers but not so much for PV Sindhu, who trusts her Korean coach Park Tae Sang to create match situations for her in training itself.
Praneeth said he needs to work on his fitness to trouble big players such as two-time world champion Kento Momota.
