Hyderabad: The first Indian to win gold at the Badminton World Championship, the first Indian singles player to win a silver medal at the Olympics, and the first Indian to win the World Tour Final. These are just a few firsts that 24-year-old Pusarla Venkata Sindhu popularly known as PV Sindhu, has to her name.
Born on July 5, 1995, in Hyderabad, the ace Indian shuttler made her international debut in 2009 at the Sub-junior Asian Badminton Championships and announced her arrival in the badminton circuit with a bronze medal in her first international competition, and this was just a stepping stone for this sporting star who went on to become one of the most successful badminton players India has ever produced.
World number 6 Sindhu was born to PV Ramana and Vijaya, who were both national level volleyball players.
She started playing badminton at the age of eight and joined Gopichand Badminton Academy for her formal training, and it was under the tutelage of Pullela Gopichand that Sindhu flourished as a shuttler.
Her first major recognition came when she won the doubles titles at the Sub-Junior Nationals and the All India Ranking in Pune in the under-13 category.
Sindhu drew international attention after she made it to the top 20 of the Badminton World Federation World Ranking in September 2012 at the age of 17, and the rest is history.
In 2013, she bagged her first Grand Prix win by defeating Singapore’s Gu Juan. At The World Championships in 2013, Sindhu won a bronze medal and repeated the feat the following year too.
She became the first Indian to win two back-to-back medals in the BWF World Badminton Championships after her bronze medal finish in 2014 BWF World Championships.
In 2016 Rio Olympics, Sindhu won silver and created the record of being the first Indian singles player to achieve the feat.
In 2017, she won 'The Indian Open Super Series' and later added a silver medal at 'The BWF World Championships'. After reaching the final of the 2018 World Championships, she became the first shuttler in the world to reach the finals of three successive major events.
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In the 18th Asian Games held at Jakarta–Palembang, Sindhu became the first Indian shuttler to reach the final of the badminton singles competition in the Asiad. She, however, lost to Tai Tzu 21-13, 21-16 to net a silver medal.
At the age of 24, Sindhu became the first Indian to lift the BWF World Tour Finals crown when she defeated Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara 21-19, 21-17.
With earnings of $8.5 million, Sindhu was ranked seventh in Forbes' list of Highest-Paid Female Athletes 2018 based on earnings from prize money and endorsements between June 2017 to June 2018.
The fifth-seeded Sindhu won't resist at her Basel laurel, and has her eyes set on Tokyo Olympics scheduled to be held next year.
Sindhu's career is also decorated with a plethora of awards and honours.
In 2013 she won the Arjuna Award, which was followed by a Padma Shri and India's highest sporting award - the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna - which she won in 2016.
