Saina Nehwal Is Associated With Which Sports?
Saina Nehwal is the initial Indian badminton player to win an Olympic medal. The Indian shuttler won the bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics.
In 2008, when she won the BWF World Junior Championships, the shuttler from Haryana made headlines extremely early in her career. In 2008, she made her Olympic debut in Beijing, but it wasn't until London 2012 that she garnered worldwide recognition.
Saina Nehwal, born on 17 March 1990, began playing badminton at the age of eight after her family relocated from Haryana to Hyderabad. Her entry into the game was motivated primarily by her inability to speak the local language and her desire to fulfill her mother's dream of becoming a state-level badminton player.
The Indian shuttler accomplished this feat by representing India at the highest level at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
On her way to becoming the first Indian woman to enter the quarterfinals of the Olympics, a youthful Saina Nehwal upset then-world number five Wang Chen of Hong Kong before losing to Maria Kristin Yulianti of Indonesia in the 2008 Beijing Games.
Saina Nehwal, who was 20 years old then, was awarded the Arjuna award in 2009 and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award in 2010 for the potential she displayed at home.
Nehwal's confidence grew as she opened herself on the Badminton World Federation (BWF) Tour. She began acquiring titles on the strength of her Beijing 2008 performance.
In 2009, in the Indonesian Open, she became the first Indian to win a BWF Super Series tournament.
In 2010, she won the India Open and the Singapore Open and successfully defended her Indonesian Open title.
In the same year, Nehwal fought back from a match point deficit against Malaysia's Wong Mew Choo to win the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.
At the London 2012 Olympics, Saina Nehwal, then 22 years old, created a new chapter in Indian badminton under great coach Pullela Gopichand.
Fourth-seeded for the Olympics, Nehwal defeated Jie Yao of the Netherlands and Tine Baun of Denmark to advance to the semifinals.
However, her top-seeded opponent in the last four was Wang Yihan of China, who won in straight games.
This set up a bronze medal match against another Chinese competitor, Wang Xin. Wang was forced to quit due to an injury at the beginning of the second game. Thus their meeting was cut short. Saina Nehwal won the first Olympic badminton medal for India.
Nehwal's blossoming fame was boosted during the next three years, as she won the Australian Open twice, the India Open, and the China Open after returning home as a hero.
PV Sindhu had begun to build a name for herself on the BWF women's singles tour by the time Nehwal defeated her in the final of the 2014 India Open; it was their first meeting.
Nehwal also began training with a new coach, Vimal Kumar, who assisted her in reaching a new career milestone.
In April 2015, Nehwal was ranked as the number one player in the world, becoming the first Indian to achieve this distinction.
She also got to the final of the All England Open, losing to Olympic champion Carolina Marin of Spain.
From then on, Nehwal would experience a decline in form and a succession of minor injuries, but after reuniting with former coach Pullela Gopichand, there was cause for more joy.
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