P V Sindhu cemented her position as a dominant force on the world stage with an Olympic silver medal while Saina Nehwal continued to battle with injuries in a year, which saw Indian badminton take giant strides at the global platform. It turned out to be a watershed year for Sindhu, who reached the upper echelons of world badminton with a silver medal at Rio Games -- an achievement also for her mentor and chief coach Pullela Gopichand, who became the only Indian coach to produce two Olympic medallists. On the other hand, for the first part of the year, it was Saina's battle with injuries which dominated the headlines even though she was considered to be the best bet for India at Rio. The Indian ace fought against time to recover from an Achilles tendons and went on to win the Australian Super Series.
Olympic silver-medallist P V Sindhu advanced to the semi-finals of the China Open after defeating local favourite He Bingjiao in straight games at the $700,000 Super Series Premier event, in Fuzhou, China, on Friday.
Riding on her stupendous performance at the prestigious All England Championship, India's ace shuttler Saina Nehwal has regained the world number two spot again in the latest rankings released by the Badminton World Federation.
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'Let us see the tricolour flutter and soar as we park our vehicles, as we play cricket in the gullies, as we surf the Internet, as we enter our places of worship,' says Ankita Athawale.
Saina Nehwal says Tai Tzu-Ying's repertoire of shots and the ability to not restrict her game to a set pattern makes the World No 1 from Chinese Taipei a very difficult player to beat at the moment.
Virat Kohli? M C Mary Kom? Neeraj Chopra?
Top stars Saina Nehwal and Lee Chong Wei were the costliest buys, fetching the maximum prize of 100,000$, while Indian shuttlers P V Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth were bought for a whopping 95,000$ and 80,000$ respectively at the rechristened Premier Badminton League (PBL) players' auction on Monday.
India's list of non-cricket sports stars is growing, but when it comes to endorsement deals, the bulk of the money is spent on a handful of cricketers.
Kidambi Srikanth continued his giant-killing spree while Saina Nehwal hardly broke a sweat to advance to the pre-quarterfinals of the USD 350,000 Hong Kong Super Series in Kowloon on Wednesday.
Olympic silver medallist P V Sindhu set up a mouth-watering summit clash with Rio Olympic gold medallist Carolina Marin after a hard-fought win over World No 4 Korean Sung Ji Hyun in the semi-finals of the India Super Series, in New Delhi, on Saturday.
Sourav Ganguly emphasised the need for playing day/night Tests to attract more spectators to stadiums.
The Indian Badminton League will hold its first players' auction in Delhi on July 19. Over 150 shuttlers are expected to go under the hammer for 66 slots in six teams. Each franchisee can have 11 players, including a maximum of four foreign and an under-19 player from their catchment area.
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P V Sindhu stormed into the quarter-finals, while Parupalli Kashyap and K Srikanth also advanced to the last eight stage after posting contrasting victories in the Denmark Open Super Series Badminton Premier, in Odense.
'In this year, we had the Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and World Championships and we have been successful (in those) and that was our target for this year. And I'm happy that at the end of the year they (players) are able to maintain their rankings'
Olympic silver medallist P V Sindhu failed to overcome World No 1 and top seed Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei and crashed out of the All England Championship.
Olympic silver medallist P V Sindhu yet again struggled to go past China's He Bingjiao and bowed out of the China Open World Tour Super 750, in Fozhou, on Friday.
India has never had so many highly-ranked shuttlers.
>There's still hope and plenty to play for, says Rediff.com's Aruneel Sadadekar.
Indian challenge ended at the Japan Open on Friday as Parupalli Kashyap was beaten by sixth seed Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei in the men's singles quarter-finals.
Olympic bronze medallist Saina Nehwal rallied from a game down to beat Sayaka Takahashi of Japan 14-21, 21-18, 21-12 and enter the quarter-finals of the women's singles at the World Badminton Championships, in Copenhagen, on Thursday. The world No. 7, seeded seventh in the tournament, will take on World No. 1 Li Xuerui of China next.
Star shuttlers P V Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth notched straight-game victories to progress to the quarter-finals, but it was curtains for Saina Nehwal in the US $700,000 Malaysia Open World Tour Super 750 tournament, at the Axiata Arena in Bukit Jalil, a suburb in Kuala Lumpur, on Thursday.
Lack of adequate time to recover after a late night match affected Saina Nehwal's performance in the semi-finals, feels her coach Vimal Kumar, who called for perfect scheduling of matches in big ticket events such as World Championship and Olympics.
Delhi's ritzy Terminal 3 is on the global top 5 list on social media and the first among Asian airports on social media.
Star Indian javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra has undergone an elbow surgery
The eighth seeded Indian, who won the Indonesia Super Series Premier and Australian Super series Open in June, defeated Russia's Sergey Sirant 21-13 21-12 in less than 30 minutes. The World No. 8 will take on France's Lucas Corvee tomorrow.
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.
India's chief badminton coach Pullela Gopichand says the draw hardly matters if the shuttlers are focused on gunning for a medal at the Olympics. He believes that it will boil down to two good back-to-back matches under pressure to earn a medal at the Rio Games, starting August 5.
Two-time bronze medallist, P V Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth started their campaign at the World Badminton Champion with contrasting victories in the women's and men's singles competition respectively in Jakarta.
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 Tuesday.
Indian teen sensation P V Sindhu made sure of a second consecutive bronze medal at the World Badminton Championships, but it was curtains for Saina Nehwal after she was beaten in straight games in the women's singles quarter-finals at the Ballerup Super Arena in Copenhagen on Friday.
Sindhu says the path to the Tokyo Olympic gold will be a tough one as now her opponents will look to exploit her weaknesses and she will need to add something new to her game to achieve success.
Saina Nehwal squandered four match points in her singles match as a young Indian women team bowed out of the Uber Cup Final after being hammered 0-5 by five-time champions Japan in a Group A match, in Bangkok.
After Srikanth was ousted 9-21, 11-21 by reigning world champion Kento Momota of Japan, third seed Sindhu went down fighting 11-21, 21-11, 15-21 to World No. 6 Chen Yufei of China in a hard-fought contest, which lasted 52 minutes.
Former champions P V Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth advanced to the quarter-finals with easy victories, but the highlight of the third day's proceedings in the Yonex-Sunrise India Open badminton tournament was H S Prannoy's thrilling victory over Denmark's Jan Jorgensen.
The Olympic silver-medallist, who out-played Japan's Nozomi Okuhara 21-7, 21-7 in a lop-sided final in Basel, Switzerland on Sunday, was mobbed at the airport after she touched down, with national coach Pullela Gopichand by her side, late on Monday.
After losing the first game, the 24-year-old Indian rebounded strongly to clinch a 15-21, 21-13, 21-13 win over Wan Ho in a gruelling second-round clash that lasted almost an hour.
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