Sindhu went down 15-21, 16-21 to the fourth seed
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.
Uncertainty is so intrinsic to sports that elite athletes will not have much trouble coping up with a pandemic-forced lockdown, believe India's top sports psychologists as they become a part of their journey into an unchartered territory. Rocked by the coronavirus pandemic, which has impacted minds as much as health and productivity, sports pyshologists Dr Chaitanya Sridhar, Nanaki J Chadha, and Keerthana Swaminathan are dealing with athletes across disciplines and economic spectrum, being their "sounding board, friend" and enabling them to process the magnitude of the situation.
A profligate P V Sindhu was, on Wednesday, knocked out of the All England Championship by an industrious Sung Ji Hyun of Korea in the women's singles opening round in Birmingham.
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.
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.
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.
Ace Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal, who has been training under Vimal Kumar for the last one week, wants the former chief coach to travel to Incheon, Korea with her for the upcoming Asian Games.
Delhi's ritzy Terminal 3 is on the global top 5 list on social media and the first among Asian airports on social media.
Saina Nehwal and P V Sindhu are training at separate academies of national coach Pullela Gopichand ever since their epic Commonwealth Games summit clash
'He asked us to spread awareness on social distancing and hygiene. He spoke about how we need Virat's (Kohli) fighting spirit to win this battle'
An unprecedented seven Indian shuttlers are set to qualify for the Olympics Games at Rio de Janeiro when the official BWF rankings are released on Thursday.
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.
Following is the schedule of Indian contingent on the seventh day of the Asian Games on Saturday.
'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.
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.
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.
Indian women's team had won a bronze medal at Incheon four years ago and Sindhu hoped they can change the colour of the medal this time when the multi-sport event gets underway on August 18.
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.
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.
The 24-year-old from Hyderabad will begin her campaign against China's Li Xuerui, a former Olympic gold medallist and World No 1.
Indian challenge ended at the Asia Badminton Championship with Saina Nehwal and P V Sindhu suffering three-game defeats in the quarter-finals of the continental championship in Wuhan.
India's Parupalli Kashyap played one of the longest matches of his career as he roared into the prequarterfinals.
Top shuttlers Saina Nehwal and Parupalli Kashyap along with two other Indians sailed into the second round of the Denmark Super Series Premier with contrasting wins in the opening round, but it was curtains for P V Sindhu in Odense on Wednesday.
Here are some photographs from the Opening Ceremony:
Olympic silver medallist P V Sindhu celebrated her 23rd birthday with a straight-game win over Japan's Aya Ohori to enter the quarter-finals of the $1,250,000 Indonesia Open BWF World Tour Super 1000 tournament.
Riding on her stupendous performance at the prestigious All England Championship, India's ace shuttler Saina Nehwal has regained the world number two spot again in the latest rankings released by the Badminton World Federation.
Top stars Saina Nehwal and Lee Chong Wei were the costliest buys, fetching the maximum prize of 100,000$, 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.
Star shuttler Kidambi Srikanth was disappointed after being called for a series of what he termed "ridiculous" service faults during his pre-quarterfinal match against China's Huang Yuxiang at the All England Championship.
>There's still hope and plenty to play for, says Rediff.com's Aruneel Sadadekar.
Sindhu seeks improvement on fitness, defence in se
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.
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.
Here's a list of all the Padma award winners
Who will make it to this year's Padma awards list?
Star shuttler H S Prannoy has credited top women shuttlers P V Sindhu and Saina Nehwal for the positive change in mindset of other players while facing tougher opponents.
Actors and sportspersons are increasingly blacklisting products like colas and fairness creams. Urvi Malvania explores what lies behind the concern among endorsers over brands they promote and how will it impact both.
The deadly COVID-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented postponement as the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Japanese government and the athletes world over agreed that Olympics in July-August this year could not have gone ahead in the present circumstances.
Srikanth had entered the finals of Commonwealth Games last year but he failed to reach the summit clash in any BWF superseries or BWF World Tour tournament since his French Open win in October, 2017.
