PV Sindhu’s journey from a whizz-kid to world Champion

Hailing from Hyderabad, 24-year-old Pusarla Venkata Sindhu, famously known as PV Sindhu, is unarguably one of the most prolific Indian badminton players in this century. She became the first Indian to win a gold at the Badminton World Championships on August 25, 2019. Also, Sindhu is the first Indian woman who bagged a silver medal at the Rio Olympics, however, she had reached very close in the preceding years.

She was honored with India’s fourth-highest civilian award ‘Padma Shri’ in the year 2015. Under the guidance of Pullela Gopichand, Sindhu won her first Grand Prix gold in the Malaysian Open in May 2013 and won a silver medal in the 2016 Olympics that remains her biggest achievement. She also became the first Indian to reach a badminton singles final at the Olympics. Her total earnings as of 2018 stood at $8.5 million and she is the only Indian who is listed on Forbes’ world’s top 10 highest-paid female athletes.

Sindhu marked her initial victories during the all-India under-10 singles held in Kochi in the year June 2005. In 2008, she also won the all-India junior major ranking badminton tournament. She stepped into the international arena in 2009 and won a bronze medal in the sub-junior Asian Badminton Championships in Colombo and a year later, she bagged silver in the International Badminton Challenge held in Iran.

Presently, she is ranked at number seven worldwide and is a hope for the whole country as the nation gears up for the summer Olympics in Tokyo next year.