It was another good year for PV Sindhu, who won the India Open Super Series and Korea Open Super Series titles, besides bagging the silver at Glasgow World Championship and finishing as runners-up at Hong Kong Open last month.
The core of the team remains the same with HS Prannoy, Lakshya Sen and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty in good form and the Indian team would hope the rub of the green also goes their way when it begins campaign on Thursday.
PV Sindhu and HS Prannoy had lost in the quarter-finals in the women's and men's singles respectively.
PV Sindhu had to dig deep to down a fighting Vu Thi Trang of Vietnam but Saina Nehwal did not break any sweat as India's top two shuttlers advanced to the women's singles second round at the 18th Asian Games, in Jakarta, on Thursday.
India's badminton ace P V Sindhu entered the summit clash of BWF World Tour Finals with a hard fought win over Akane Yamaguchi of Japan in the semi-finals, in Bali, on Saturday.
Reigning World champion P V Sindhu and B Sai Praneeth were handed easy group stage outings in the badminton draws unveiled on Thursday for the Tokyo Olympics, starting on July 23.
The top-16 in the world by April-end will make the cut for the Olympics.
The Rio Games silver winner easily notched up a 21-14, 21-15 win over unseeded Japanese Aya Ohori in the second round match that lasted just 40 minutes.
Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu beat Olympic and world champion Carolina Marin in the Indian Open final, in New Delhi, on Sunday.
Defending champion P V Sindhu and fellow-Indian H S Prannoy marched into the semi-finals of the women's and men's singles respectively at the US $120,000 Macau Open Grand Prix Gold on Friday.
Mary Kom won the Padma Bhushan in 2013 and Padma Shri in 2006.
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.
India's Olympic silver-medallist P V Sindhu, who captured the imagination of the entire nation by winning a silver medal at the Rio Olympics, has ignored Telangana Deputy Chief Minister Mohammed Mahmood Ali's offer for a 'better coach', saying that her current guru Pullela Gopichand is the 'best coach' for her.
India's men's singles campaign suffered a setback as none of the players could make it past the opening round on Day 2 of the India Open in New Delhi on Wednesday.
India's chief national badminton coach Pullela Gopichand admitted to crammed BWF itinerary causing a problem but at the same time believes that onus is on a player of PV Sindhu's calibre to adapt to the calendar instead of complaining about it. Apart from the World Championships gold, Sindhu failed to win any other tournament last year.
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.
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.
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.
Olympic medallists PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal on Sunday headed for a gold medal showdown at the 18th Asian Games after their quarter-final victories ensured India's first ever women's singles medals at the continental event.
Indian shuttlers had a mixed day in the opening round of the China Open with Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu easing into Round II, while Kidambi Srikanth and Ajay Jayaram making early exits.
'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.'
Seventh seeded Indians Ishaan Bhatnagar and Tanisha Crasto clinched the mixed doubles title with a straight-games' win over compatriots T Hema Nagendra Babu and Srivedya Gurazada.
World champion P V Sindhu was on Friday ousted from the All England Championship after being outplayed by a determined Nozomi Okuhara of Japan, who rallied her way to a thrilling three-game win in the quarter-final of the women's singles in Birmingham. Sindhu's defeat ended India's campaign at the Super 1000 tournament.
In a nail-biting semi-final, fourth seed Sindhu went down fighting 21-19, 19-21, 18-21 to Yamaguchi after battling for an hour and 19 minutes on Saturday.
Sindhu, a 2019 World Champion, lost 14-21, 21-15, 14-21 to Zhang in a match that lasted 55 minutes.
In-form PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth will look to break new grounds as they spearhead India's charge for an elusive gold at the 18th Asian Games badminton event which begins with the team competitions, in Jakarta, on Sunday.
India's top players, including P V Sindhu, may not be going through the best of times, but national badminton coach Pullela Gopichand is still hopeful of a best-ever Olympics outing in Tokyo. Gopichand has produced two Olympic medallists -- Saina Nehwal (bronze in 2012) and Sindhu (silver in 2016).
Kohli's post stole people's hearts becoming the most retweeted sports-related tweet
Saina Nehwal and P V Sindhu are training at separate academies of national coach Pullela Gopichand ever since their epic Commonwealth Games summit clash
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday
'It is a beautiful portrait of Ek Bharat, Sreshth Bharat.'
Olympic silver medallist P V Sindhu is just one step away from clinching her maiden Super Series Premier title having reached the final of the China Open after registering a come-from-behind win over Korea Sung Ji Hyun at the $700,000 tournament in Fuzhou, China, on Saturday.
The duo is aiming for top-30 ranking and continued success in bigger tournaments.
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.
India's P V Sindhu squandered an 11-6 lead in the second game before going down 18-21, 21-18, 21-8 in 68 minutes to former world number one Akane Yamaguchi.
Two-time World Championship bronze-medallist, India's P V Sindhu made a rousing start to the new season as she clinched the Malaysia Masters Grand Prix Gold title after defeating Scotland's Kristy Gilmour in straight games in the final, in Penang, on Sunday.
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.
Don't do any strange things in preparation ahead of Olympics, Gopichand's advise to shuttlers
P V Sindhu sought the help of the legendary Prakash Padukone and trained at his academy in Bengaluru last week.
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