Olympic bronze-medallist Saina Nehwal stood just one win away from clinching her maiden China Open title after she stormed into the finals of the USD 700,000 Super Series Premier tournament in Fuzhou.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Tuesday
With the coronavirus pandemic halting all sport activities, India's former chief badminton coach Vimal Kumar on Tuesday urged the government to allow the Olympic-bound athletes to continue their training after conducting the required tests. Following the respective directives of the Talengana and Karnataka governments, the Pullela Gopichand academy in Hyderbad and Prakash Padukone Academy in Bangalore have been shut down for two weeks.
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.
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday
The Hong Kong Open finalist, Sameer reached the quarter-finals with a shocking 21-17, 21-15 win in a 40-minute match.
London Olympics bronze medallist Saina Nehwal says the Glasgow World Championship made her realise that she needs to work harder on her stamina and beat tougher players to regain her place among badminton's top-10.
Sporting fraternity hails Sindhu's historic World C'ships gold
India's first world badminton champion P V Sindhu said her next aim is to bag the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
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.
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.
India's P V Sindhu came into the semi-final contest with an overwhelming 4-1 head-to-head lead over Thailand's Chochuwong, but wasn't at her best.
Was it badminton sensation PV Sindhu, who became the first Indian to win the World Championships gold medal? Or is it the young shooting progidy Saurabh Chaudhary? Or his India colleague Elavenil Valarivan, who recently took over as World No 1? What about India's heroes on the cricketing field -- Virat Kohli? Rohit Sharma?
Ace Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal has been nominated for the Woman Player of the Year Award of the Badminton World Federation after a consistent season which saw her occupy the world number one spot for a brief period.
India men's dream run in the ongoing Badminton Asia Team Championships came to an end after a 1-3 semi-final loss to Indonesia, in Hyderabad, on Saturday.
This is the second time in her career, after April 6 this year that Rio Olympics silver medallist Sindhu has occupied the second spot on the leaderboard.
This year PV Sindhu has reached the summit clash at India Open, the Commonwealth Games and the Thailand Open but failed to cross the final hurdle, prompting many critics to once again describe her as the 'perennial bridesmaid'.
Srikanth made a good start in the second game, moving to 7-3 advantage but Lee once again turned the tables, jumping to 13-9 and kept his nose ahead to eventually shut the doors on the Indian.
India has entered the final of the Thomas Cup for the first time since the tournament began 73 years back.
Indian Women's Hockey team leaves for Argentina tour.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Tuesday
PV Sindhu dominated from start to finish and smashed her way into the second round of the prestigious All England Badminton Championships, in Birmingham, on Wednesday.
P V Sindhu progressed to the final of the women's singles event at the US$600,000 Korea Open Super Series, at the SK Handball Stadium in Seoul on Saturday.
World Championship silver-medallist shuttler Saina Nehwal is aiming to remain injury-free and excel in all the Super Series tournaments in the run up to next year's Rio Olympics.
Sania Mirza opens her singles campaign against Czech Iveta Benesova at the Olympics Games on Monday.
P V Sindhu secured her fifth World Championships medal following a stunning comeback while B Sai Praneeth became the first Indian male shuttler in 36 years to grab a podium place in badminton's prestigious event, in Basel, on Friday.
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.
Indian shuttlers Kidambi Srikanth and Saina Nehwal may have hit global headlines with their big wins against China's superstars of badminton but sadly they have not made it into the state-run Chinese media, which played down their herculean achievement.
'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.'
Third seed Sindhu beat Indonesia's Lindaweni Fanetri while Srikanth accounted for China's Huang Yuxiang.
Coronavirus crisis caused mass cancellations and postponements in the last three days, March was to be a busy sports month. But as things stand now, there is no live action there for the fans once the All England Championships of badminton wind up in Birmingham.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Saturday
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday
'It is very close to Puma's deal with Kohli in terms of yearly sponsorship.' 'Sindhu will get Rs 40 crore as sponsorship while the rest will be for equipment.'
On March 11, the government issued a revised travel advisory, cancelling all visas till April 15 and making it clear that Indian nationals returning to the country from affected countries would be quarantined for 14 days. England is among the most-affected by coronavirus outbreak. P V Sindhu was given the choice of pulling out of All England Championships after the Indian government's travel restrictions came into force but the Olympic silver-medallist decided to play on
Ace Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal moved one place up to occupy the fifth spot while P V Sindhu remained unchanged at 10th in the latest Badminton World Federation Rankings issued on Thursday. Saina, who clinched her second Australian Open title earlier this month, exchanged places with Japan's Nozomi Okuhara, who now occupies the sixth spot in the women's singles list headed by Spain's Carolina Marin.
An important factor in India's stupendous success in 2021 was the way the government opened its coffers to support athletes.
India's best hope in the women's singles, Saina Nehwal bowed out of the Yonex Sunrise India Open Grand Prix badminton tournament, though Chetan Anand and Anand Pawar kept hopes alive by defeating their rivals in the men's pre-quarterfinal matches in Hyderabad on Thursday.
P V Sindhu, K Srikanth, Ajay Jayaram, Subhankar Dey, B Sai Praneeth and Sameer Verma scored easy first round singles victories, while the pair of Jwala Gutta-Ashwini Ponnappa shocked a fancied Malaysian pair to enter the second round of the women's doubles.
