Shafali Verma is by far the most decorated of the lot having already played in three World Cup finals at senior level.
The revamped Premier Badminton League (PBL), commencing here tomorrow with hosts Mumbai Rockets taking on the Saina Nehwal-spearheaded Awadhe Warriors, is to experiment with a new concept - Trump match - that's expected to keep the interest till the end of a tie.
Hailing Pusarla V Sindhu's excellent show right through 2016 that saw her becoming the first and only Indian shuttler to win a silver medal in the Olympic Games, chief national coach P Gopichand said his lanky ward is capable of scaling greater heights. "I have always maintained that even when she won in 2013 or 2014 (back-to-back world championship singles bronze medals) Sindhu is still some time away from being her best. I maintain that even now that she has the potential to do even better," said the former All-England men's singles champion during an interaction with the media in Mumbai.
The World No 11 Srikanth will take on China's Lu Guang Zu in the next round.
The 18-year-old Sen, the 2018 world junior championships silver-medallist, lost 13-21, 12-21 to Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk of Thailand in a 32-minute contest.
Indian shuttler Anand Pawar powered his way to the main draw of the men's singles competition with a straight-game victory over German's Dieter Domke in the Denmark Super Series Premier tournament.
Banga Beats fought back from a 2-0 deficit to clinch the game by 3-2 in the Indian Badminton League (IBL) face-off against bottom-placed Banga Beats in Hyderabad on Tuesday.
India's Lakshya Sen on Thursday progressed to the quarter-finals of the All England Badminton Championships in Birmingham, while HS Prannoy crashed out in the second round.
Olympic bronze medallist Saina Nehwal emerged the lone survivor at the US $400,000 All England Championship, thrashing Scotland's Kirsty Gilmour in straight-games to reach the second round even as compatriot PV Sindhu fell by the wayside in Birmingham.
Spearheading India's challenge at the World Championships, Olympic silver medallist P V Sindhu says she is in good form and vowed to better the colour of her past two bronze medals.
All but one of its players entered the third round in the Asian Junior Badminton Championships' singles.
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.
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.
Kidambi Srikanth scored a stunning straight-games victory over world No. 4 Lee Zii Jia but Commonwealth Games champion Lakshya Sen suffered a shock defeat in the opening round of the Japan Open Super 750 badminton tournament, in Osaka, on Wednesday.
A foot injury early in the year derailed her plans but ace Indian shuttler P V Sindhu is happy to make a successful comeback with a good performance at the Denmark Super Series Premier and a third successive Macau Grand Prix Gold title.
On the last day of the competition, Yash Vardhan and Shreya Agrawal bagged three gold medals each.
HS Prannoy becomes the first player to beat Tokyo Olympics gold medallist Victor Axelsen in full a match since March.
India beat Austria 4-1 in their opening match in the Sudirman Cup.
Ace shuttler Saina Nehwal on Sunday said India has adequate infrastructure for badminton but don't have enough coaches and academies. "There is no problem on infrastructure front, but what we don't have enough number of academies and coaches, like the Chinese have," she told PTI. Saina has been practising in Bengaluru after recovering from a knee injury which had affected her progress at Rio Olympics. She had lost her second group match against Ukraine's Maria Ulitina to crash out of the mega event.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Friday.
PV Sindhu crashed out of the ongoing Thailand Open in the opening round
Both enter finals in Singles of the Swiss Open
Mahesh Bhupathi says for India to host big-ticket WTA events, the country needs to produce a top-50 women's singles player, who can bring the fans to the stadium.
But Saina, who had lost in the quarter-finals last year, is set to gain 3600 points having made it to the World Championships final this year. Saina will therefore, now have 82, 792 points to her tally, giving her the World No 1 title again.
Sen became only the third men's singles player after Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand to reach the final
India will not take part in baseball, bowling, fencing, karate, modern pentathlon, rugby, softball, soft tennis and triathlon because of the athletes' poor standards.
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.
Kashyap, a Commonwealth Games champion, was trailing 8-14 in the third game when he chose to retire after pulling his calf muscle.
Rising shuttler P V Sindhu stole the show with a hard-fought win over World No.3 Germany's Juliane Schenk as Awadhe Warriors sailed into the semi-finals of the inaugural Indian Badminton League with a clinical win over Pune Pistons in Hyderabad.
It has emerged now that Prannoy's name was recommended by Gopichand on June 3 in his capacity as a Khel Ratna Award recipient.
'Her defence was the one only problem. (Carolina) Marin and Pornpawee (Chochuwong) are good attacking players, they were using a lot of half smash and straight smash, and when Sindhu's defence goes down on a day, it affects her other skills as well, she gets nervous. But now she has improved a lot in her defence as well. Her endurance on the court is also good.'
Using a sledgehammer to fix some ills can cut down a game at its peak, warns Shekhar Gupta.
The 26-year-old reigning World champion, who won the silver medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016, beat the world No. 34 21-9, 21-16 in 35 minutes. It was her sixth win over Cheung in as many meetings.
A look at star arrivals.
India's badminton ace P V Sindhu said national coaches need to be more qualified in order to groom more players to become champions in the future.
Prannoy took to Twitter to express his displeasure.
Shah Rukh Khan said all individuals are 'incomplete' in their own way despite any amount of 'power and stardom' as he wished the Indian Paralympic Contingent for the Asian Para Games 2018 at their send-off ceremony.
Rediff.com introduces you to the athletes who have brought India glory in Birmingham.
Here's a look at Indian athletes' performance on Monday, Day 4 of the Games.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar participated in a question and answer session with his fans.
