For all her achievements, says Bikash Mohapatra, Saina is yet to win either the Worlds, Olympics or All England, badminton's flagship events.
Defending champion Saina Nehwal is just one step away from retaining her women's singles title of the $ 120,000 Syed Modi International Badminton tournament.
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.
Asked if the cancellation of the first match's result had any impact on him, Sen said, "I just took it as a practice match; now it is time for me to just focus on one match at a time. I will rest, recover and try to be at my best against Christie.
Sindhu stands on the brink of history as she pursues the gold medal in the upcoming Games, having won a silver and bronze in 2016 Rio and 2020 Tokyo edition respectively.
Ajay Jayaram beat 15th seed Kenichi Tago of Japan 21-12, 21-19 in a 40-minute first round contest. The unseeded Indian will next meet Vladimir Ivanov of Russia, who defeated Michal Matejka of Slovakia 21-10, 21-6 in another opening round match.
Ashwini and Tanisha, who won the Guwahati Masters super 100 title, last month will take on Malaysia's Pei Kee Go and Mei Xing Teoh next.
Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy capped off their impressive campaign with a historic title at the Swiss Open.
China's Chen Long stepped out of compatriot Lin Dan's shadow to spoil Lee Chong Wei's hopes of a golden Olympic swansong and win the men's badminton title in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday.
'It was tough financially for the first few years but my friends and family supported me and once he did well at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, there was no looking back.'
Sen, a product of the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy, has been in the form of his life for about a year now.
Indian contingent has an opportunity to go deep in the draw and recapture the trophy which has been won by just two Indians so far -- the legendary Prakash Padukone (1980) and P Gopichand (2001).
Prannoy is only seeded Indian player at No. 7 in the men's singles draw of 32 as he will begin his campaign against Loh Kean Yew of Singapore, against whom the Indian has a 4-1 win-loss record.
Satwik Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty claimed India's first ever medal in men's doubles after settling for a silver at the 21st Commonwealth Games' badminton competition, in Gold Coast, on Sunday.
The FIR, filed on Thursday by M Goviappa Nagaraja, alleged that the 21-year-old reigning Commonwealth Games champion, along with his brother Chirag Sen, had fudged their age to get into playing age-group tournaments since 2010.
Was it badminton sensation PV Sindhu, who became the first Indian to win the World Championships gold medal? Or is it the young shooting progidy Saurabh Chaudhary? Or his India colleague Elavenil Valarivan, who recently took over as World No 1? What about India's heroes on the cricketing field -- Virat Kohli? Rohit Sharma?
The women's doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand lost to top seeds Chen Qing Chen and Jia Yi Fan of China 18-21, 11-21.
London Olympics bronze medallist Saina Nehwal says the Glasgow World Championship made her realise that she needs to work harder on her stamina and beat tougher players to regain her place among badminton's top-10.
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.
Top Indian men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty suffered a straight-game loss to seventh seeded English pair of Ben Lane and Sean Vendy 17-21, 14-21 in a last-8 match.
Tennis star Rohan Bopanna, who is set to be crowned world number one in the doubles format, was on Thursday selected for the prestigious Padma Shri honour by the government along with six other athletes including veteran squash player Joshna Chinappa.
P V Sindhu hopes to continue her rich vein of form in upcoming events, including the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, after winning the Singapore Open on Sunday.
Top stars Saina Nehwal and Lee Chong Wei were the costliest buys, fetching the maximum prize of 100,000$, while Indian shuttlers P V Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth were bought for a whopping 95,000$ and 80,000$ respectively at the rechristened Premier Badminton League (PBL) players' auction on Monday.
Check out how India's athletes fared on Day 6, Thursday, August 1, 2024:
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Friday.
The doubles team of Jwala Gutta and Shruti Kurien has also crossed the first round hurdle.
The 2020 international calendar concluded with the three tournaments in the Asia leg which was conducted in Bangkok in successive weeks.
In mixed doubles, K Sai Pratheek and Tanisha Crasto prevailed 21-18, 21-14 over Macau's Leong Iok Chong and Weng Chi NG to make a winning start.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Wednesday.
With the Paris Olympics looming, Chirag and Satwik didn't compete in too many tournaments last year, but they plan to play in more events this season.
PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth secured straight game wins
Former badminton world number one Lee Chong Wei is hoping to be back on court for the start of the 2016 Olympic qualifiers in May after finally being given an April date for a hearing into his failed dope test.
Ministry mulls graded funding for sports federations
Natekar, who was considered one of most popular sportspersons of his time, was also a former World number three.
India's Saina Nehwal breezed into the women's singles World Badminton Championships final after beating local girl Lindaweni Fanetri in Jakarta, on Saturday.
The Olympic silver-medallist, who out-played Japan's Nozomi Okuhara 21-7, 21-7 in a lop-sided final in Basel, Switzerland on Sunday, earlier addressed the frenzied media at the Indira Gandhi InternationalAirport in New Delhi on Monday
PV Sindhu on Sunday said she is "definitely" going to play for the next couple of years even as the 2028 Los Angeles Games remains at the back of her mind.
HS Prannoy, Sameer Verma and Sourabh Verma are the men's singles players who have decided to withdraw while doubles specialists Chirag Shetty, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy have also opted out. Leading Indian women's singles players PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal - both previous Olympic medallists - are making the trip to England, as are their male counterparts Kidambi Srikanth and B Sai Praneeth.
Two-time silver medallist P V Sindhu produced yet another commanding performance as she demolished Beiwen Zhang of United States in straight games to advance to the quarter-finals of the BWF Badminton World Championships.
Madhya Pradesh's Aditya Joshi has become the first male junior badminton player from India to be ranked world No 1. Harshal Dani is another Indian who, at No 8, figures in the top ten of the junior rankings.
