P V Sindhu said she still has lots to learn and needs to add a few more shots to her repertoire to dominate world badminton.
Star shuttlers, including P V Sindhu, will chase individual gold medals but doubles would also under the spotlight as India would aim to retain the mixed team title and continue their consistent run at the Commonwealth Games.
Confident after winning a bronze medal at the World Badminton Championships, fast rising shuttler P V Sindhu says she is ready to take on her celebrated compatriot Saina Nehwal at the inaugural Indian Badminton League.
After losing seven successive finals, PV Sindhu finally redeemed herself with the gold medal at the World Tour Finals.
Satwik has been working with sport & performance psychologist Shree Advani
India's leading shuttlers P V Sindhu, Parupalli Kashyap and Anand Pawar got off to winning starts in the singles event at the US $125,000 Swiss Grand Prix Gold tournament in Basel on Wednesday.
India has entered the final of the Thomas Cup for the first time since the tournament began 73 years back.
Fresh from their Korea Open triumph, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will look to continue their dream run.
The Indian challenge ended at the Asia Badminton Championship after Saina Nehwal and H S Prannoy went down fighting in the singles semi-finals, in Wuhan, on Saturday.
World no 10 men's doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, however, are expected to face a stiff challenge in the league stage.
Sindhu had resumed training last month under the supervision of Korean coach Park Tae-Sang after the Sports Authority of India
Star shuttler Jwala Gutta once again asked the Badminton Association of India to stop the "step-motherly treatment" towards its doubles players, saying its high time the federation changes its attitude. "I've won medals at the highest level but you're still not capitalising on the achievement. The doubles are still being given a step-motherly treatment. You need to change your attitude," a concerned Jwala told PTI in an interview on the sidelines of the 12th South Asian Games here. "After Ashwini and I, there is nobody and that is the plain truth. It's the doubles, I'm more worried about," a three-time medalist in the Commonwealth Games 2006, 2010 and 2014 lamented. "If we want to compete with China, we have to encourage all the events. We can't just bank on singles all the time. Doubles is taken seriously everywhere except India," the ace shuttler said.
Suhas L Yathiraj along Manoj Sarkar on Friday qualified after the game's governing body BWF granted two bipartite quotas to India, making it a seven-member contingent at the Tokyo Games, beginning August 24.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed shuttler Lakshya Sen for putting up a spirited fight after he lost in the final of the All England Championships.
Her frequent losses in the finals and the accompanying criticism does not affect ace shuttler PV Sindhu, who, on Saturday, said playing in the summit showdown of a tournament itself is 'a big achievement'.
An important factor in India's stupendous success in 2021 was the way the government opened its coffers to support athletes.
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Saturday
Sen will now face the winner of the other quarter-final match between Olympic champion and top seed Viktor Axelsen and India's Kidambi Srikanth on Saturday.
One of the strong medal hopefuls from badminton at the upcoming Olympics, PV Sindhu said she wants to break into the top 7 in world ranking before the Rio Games in August.
At 20, Saina Nehwal's shoulders bear the expectations and hopes of millions of sports fans among India's massive population.
Sindhu lost 7-21, 11-21 to World No. 3 Okuhara in a lop-sided contest.
Thailand's Kunlavut Vitidsarn and Korea's An Seyoung emerged men's and women's singles champions respectively at the India Open Super 750 tournament.
While Saina made short work of USA's Beiwan Zhang, second seed Sindhu had to dig deep to get the better of Japanese Sayaka Sato.
Mary Kom said she merely left it on the federation and did not pressurise it to rule in her favour.
Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap emerged as the lone survivor at the Japan Open in an otherwise disappointing day for India as top shuttlers Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth made an early exit from the Super Series tournament in Tokyo, on Thursday.
India's mixed doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and V Diju are virtually out of the reckoning at the London Olympics. They suffered yet another straight-games defeat in their second group match in the badminton competition at the Wembley arena on Sunday.
Olympic bronze medalist Saina Nehwal says the inclusion of former Olympic champion and her childhood hero Taufik Hidayat in her team Hyderabad Hotshots will serve as a moral booster in the upcoming Indian Badminton League.
