Mumbai and New Delhi may feature in the top 10 in the next 10 to 20 years.
Archer Laishram Bombayla Devi advanced to the pre-quarter-finals in the women's individual recurve competition, defeating Chinese Taipei's Lin Shih-Chia, at the Rio Olympics on Wednesday.
Nehwal has had a troubled run in this year as she has now faced exits from a tournament in the first round five times.
A rematch of the All England final between India's Saina Nehwal and world champion Carolina Marin is on the cards with the two stars given first and second seeding in the Yonex Sunrise India Open Superseries to be played from March 24.
Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu remained in the hunt for a historic Asian Games gold medal after a tense win but Saina Nehwal settled for a bronze following her 10th straight defeat against World No. 1 Tai Tzu Ying.
India's women recurve team kept itself in medal contention by moving to the semifinals of the Asian Games even as the men's recurve team suffered a close 3-5 defeat against Hong Kong to crash out in the elimination round of the archery competition.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday
The 25-year-old Indian, who is on a comeback trail after recovering from injuries, beat Mithun 21-9, 21-15 in just 31 minutes to set up a title clash with Japan's Koki Watanabe on Sunday.
Indian tennis star Sania Mirza began the 2015 season and her partnership with Su-Wei Hsieh with a hard fought 7-5, 6-3 win over Jarmila Gajdosova and Ajla Tomljanovic, in Brisbane on Tuesday.
With tensions between China and Taiwan rapidly increasing, the tone of China's official media has also become progressively more strident, observes former senior RA&W officer and China expert Jayadeva Ranade.
Yuki Bhambri returned to India's Davis Cup squad for the World Group play-off tie against world No 2 Serbia, as the selectors named a six-member squad on expected lines. Somdev Devvarman, the country's No 1 singles player, will lead the squad.
Sania Mirza and Cara Black brushed aside the challenge of Jelena Jankovic and Alisa Kleybanova to reach the women's doubles quarter-finals but Rohan Bopanna's campaign ended at the French Open following his defeat in the mixed doubles quarter-finals.
Pistol aces Jitu Rai and Heena Sidhu bagged a bronze each to continue India's medal charge at the 10th Asian Championship 10m Rifle/Pistol in Wako City.
The top seeds lost to Chris Haggard and Yen-Hsun Lu in the first round of the China Open.
Indian tennis sensation Sania Mirza and Zimbabwean Cara Black started their Sony Open campaign on a positive note. Check out Friday's sports action.
Indian boxer Pavitra (60kg) advanced to the quarter-finals of the Asian Games after out-classing Pakistan's Rukhsana Perveen in a bout that did not go beyond the opening round, in Jakarta, on Saturday.
Fifth seeds Sania Mirza and Cara Black had things their way while beating the Taipei-South African pair Hao-Ching Chan and Chanelle Scheepers to enter the quarter-finals of the Madrid Open on Wednesday. The Indo-Zimbabwean pair won 6-4, 6-1 in little over an hour.
Fifth seeded Sindhu, who made early exits from China and Korea last month, has been pitted against Michelle Li, who remains a tricky customer despite the fact that Sindhu has a 5-2 head-to-head record against the world no 9 Canadian.
Top seed R M V Gurusaidutt entered the men's singles semi-finals, but women's defending champion P C Thulasi and reigning National champion Sayali Gokhale were knocked out of the US $15,000 Tata Open India International Challenge Badminton tournament at the Cricket Club of India, in Mumbai, on Friday.
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.
Sania Mirza and Cara Black cruised past Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears in just 52 minutes to seal a semi-final berth at the WTA Rogers Cup, in Montreal.
The Indo-Taipei pair beat Sandra Kloesel and Anna Koumantou 2-6, 6-1, 10-7 in the quarters.
Mary Kom defeated Chinese Taipei's Meng-Chieh Pin in a split verdict in the quarter-finals to make the last four stage of the light flyweight (48kg) category.
Returning to action after nearly two months, Saina, who made last-minute withdrawals from Indonesia Open and last week's Japan Open because of injuries, got past Chaiwan 21-17, 21-19 in her opening round contest.
Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna, who will represent India at the Rio Olympics as a team, may clash against each other at the Wimbledon pre-quarterfinals as they have been drawn in the top half of the draw at the men's doubles event. Bopanna and his Romanian partner Florin Mergea, seeded sixth, open their campaign against Croatian pair of Marin Draganja and Nikola Mektic.
Spaniards Rafael Nadal and Garbine Muguruza were named as the International Tennis Federation (ITF) world champions on Friday - the first time in 19 years the awards have gone to players from the same country.
India's shooter Apurvi Chandela had a gold medal in her grasp before a slip up in the 19th shot pushed her outside the medal bracket at the ISSF World Cup Rifle/Pistol stage.
Top-seeds Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis entered the semifinals of the WTA Aegon International.
Following is the schedule of Indian contingent on the 10th day of the Asian Games tomorrow.
Canada and Australia said they would not be sending athletes to the Tokyo Olympics if the Games went ahead as scheduled in July and August this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. Here is a list of previous cancellations, boycotts and changes of venues of the Summer and Winter games.
Fourth seeded Srikanth, who had claimed a silver medal at this year's Commonwealth Games, had to dig deep in his reservoir to outwit fellow Indian H S Prannoy 18-21, 30-29, 21-18 in a thrilling match, clocking an hour and seven minutes.
As Mahesh Bhupathi prepares to retire this year, India's new Davis Cup captain Anand Amritraj feels the veteran tennis ace should get a farewell tie, though he made clear it is not in his hands to decide on the matter.
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.
Karman struggled to contain her unforced errors but prevailed 6-3 6-4 win over Eudice Chong to give India a 1-0 lead in the Asia/Oceania Group I tie.
They showed nerve of steel to pull off a thrilling 3-2 upset over Chinese Taipei.
MC Mary Kom inched one step closer towards her sixth gold medal at the Women's World Boxing Championships after beating Kim Hyang Mi of North Korea in the semi-finals of the 48kg.
The 16-year-old, son of a farmer based in Meerut, first combined with compatriots Arjun Singh Cheema and Anmol Jain to log a total of 1731 to win the team gold and fetched the individual gold with 239.8 in the eight-man individual final to finish with two gold medals.
Gaurav Ghei came agonisingly close to his second win in as many starts on the Asian Tour.
With the world population exceeding 7 billion, people all over the world are jostling for space. Go through these images from across the globe and see how overcrowded it can get.
The 34-year-old, who is a five-time world champion besides being an Olympic bronze-medallist, beat local favourite Diem Thi Trinh Kieu in a split verdict in the opening round of the light flyweight (48kg) category.