Srikanth credits Gopichand for all recent success - the two back-to-back Super Series titles and says, 'My focus is on World Championships, not thinking of rankings'
Returning to action after a break, India's double Olympic medallist P V Sindhu on Friday bowed out of the Denmark open badminton tournament after losing in straight games to world no 8 Korean An Seyoung in the women's singles quarterfinals in Odense.
Badminton World No 1 Lee Chong Wei fell yet again to his great adversary Lin Dan in the semi-finals of the Asian Games on Sunday, ending the Malaysian's last hope of winning a gold medal at the Asiad.
World champion Viktor Axelsen of Denmark and Chinese Taipei's No 1 shuttler Tai Tzu Ying will be up for grabs when the high-profile Players' Auction for the lucrative Premier Badminton League gets underway in Hyderabad on Monday.
Star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra is among the 20 sportspersons picked for the Arjuna Awards, who will be honoured by President Ram Nath Kovind at the Rashtrapati Bhawan.
Two-time Olympic medallist and fourth seed PV Sindhu made a positive start to her title defence on Wednesday, beating Jenjira Stadelmann of Switzerland 21-9, 21-16 in a lopsided opening round women's singles match.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty went down fighting to Olympic champions Lee Yang and Wang Chi-Lan of Chinese Taipei at the Japan Open.
Rankireddy and Shetty won 21-12, 21-16 in a quarterfinal match that lasted 49 minutes.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday.
Srikanth said winning for the country was a big motivating factor for the team.
Harshit Aggarwal defeated Mongolia's Batdavaa Munkhbat 21-15, 21-13 to be pitted against Japan's third seed Kodai Naraoka in the third round.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Friday.
P V Sindhu breezed into the summit clash of the World Tour Finals for the second successive time after prevailing over 2013 World champion Ratchanok Intanon in a tense semi-final.
Two-time Olympic medalist P V Sindhu and World Athletics Championship bronze medalist Anju Bobby George visited the Ahmedabad Military and Rifle Training Association range in Khanpur/
Kidambi Srikanth entered the final of the $120,000 Swiss Grand Prix Gold badminton championship after he got the better of compatriot Ajay Jayaram in an all-India last-four clash in Basel on Saturday.
Legendary Sachin Tendulkar along with chess wizard Viswanathan Anand and tennis ace Sania Mirza are likely to grace India's first ever day-night Test against Bangladesh at the Eden Gardens.
Sindhu lost 7-21, 24-22, 15-21 to Beiwen Zhang of United States in a match that lasted 56 minutes while World Championships bronze-medallst Sai Praneeth was trailing 9-21, 7-11 when he conceded the match to fifth-seeded Anders Antonsen of Denmark due to an unspecified injury.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Thursday
HS Prannoy and PV Sindhu is set to lead India's charge at the upcoming Sudirman Cup.
India's top-five finish not a given this time
Malaysia's world number one Lee Chong Wei exited the world badminton championships on Friday, beaten 21-15, 11-21, 21-12 in the quarter-finals by former World and Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat. Less than an hour later, in another big surprise, title-holder Lin Dan succumbed 21-13, 21-13 to 13th seeded South Korean Park Sung-hwan.
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Sunday.
Pullela Gopichand expects Indian athletes to claim an unparalleled double digit medal haul at the Olympics
An 'upset' PV Sindhu says a historic gold medal at the World Badminton Championships slipped through her hands in the dying moments of the thrilling final against Nozomi Okuhara.
India's badminton stars Saina Nehwal and Purapalli Kashyap are ready to walk down the isle, according to media reports.
The Badminton World Federastion (BWF) unveiled a revised international calendar to salvage the remainder of the season, disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Defending champion Saina Nehwal entered the pre-quarterfinals but it turned out to be a disastrous day for the men with all of them, including reigning champion K Srikanth, failing to cross the opening hurdle at the Yonex-Sunrise India Open Super Series badminton.
Saina Nehwal continued her consistent run in international circuit, reaching yet another semi-final at the $ 200,000 Asia Badminton Championship, in Wuhan, China, on Friday.
The 28-year-old from Hyderabad, a winner of the Indonesia Masters, semi-finalist at Malaysia Masters and quarter-finalist at the All England Championship, saw US$36,825 added to her career earnings.
Carolina Marin became the first Spaniard to win the All-England badminton championship when she defeated India's Saina Nehwal 16-21, 21-14, 21-7 in Birmingham on Sunday.
Legendary Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar on Tuesday praised star pacer Mohammed Shami and para-archer Sheetal Devi after being honoured with the Arjuna Award in Delhi.
In other India-related news, Manish Kaurav (KL3 men 200m) and Manjeet Singh (VL2 men 200m) made it to the finals of their respective events for the first time in the history of the tournament.
He is known to be a demanding coach but Pullela Gopichand is of the opinion that Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu's odd defeats can't be termed as her failure, not even by a single per cent.
P V Sindhu on Sunday said the heart-breaking World Championship final loss was not on her mind when she was plotting the downfall of Japan's Nozomi Okuhara en-route to her Korea Open title in Seoul.
Home-grown icons Saina Nehwal and P Kashyap, along with some international stars such as Lee Chong Wei, would be the top draws at the Indian Badminton League's players' auction to be held in New Delhi on Monday.
PV Sindhu had burst onto the scene when as a 16-year-old she had stunned London Olympics gold medallist Li in the quarterfinals of China Masters.
Three Indians will feature in the semi-finals of the French Open Super Series badminton tournament after Kidambi Srikanth, H S Prannoy and P V Sindhu won their quarter-final matches in Paris on Friday.
It was a mixed day for India in the All England Championship as Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichanda clinched a stunning win, while Lakshya Sen crashed out.
The seventh seeded Indians made good starts but couldn't sustain the pressure in the opening game.
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday
