World Badminton Championships preview: Big day for India as Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu play semifinals
With an unprecedented two medals from the same BWF World Championships assured for India, Saturday is a big day for Indian badminton.
India’s ever shining stars, Saina Nehwal, the silver medallist from the previous Worlds in Jakarta in 2015, and PV Sindhu, bronze medallist from 2013 and 2014 Worlds and 2016 Rio Olympic silver medallist, will keep Indian badminton lovers glued to the television sets on Saturday as they play their women’s singles semifinals in Glasgow on Saturday.
India’s medal count at the World badminton championships has already swelled to seven with six of them coming from women in each of the editions from 2011 while the legendary Prakash Padukone is the lone Indian male to win a medal, bronze in the 1983 Copenhagen Worlds.
World No. 16 Saina Nehwal, who has been seeded 12th in the World Championships played a tiring three-game quarterfinal against local favourite and 16th seeded Scotland’s Kirsty Gilmour, winning 21-19 18-21 21-15 nearly an hour and a quarter.
It is a remarkable achievement for Saina, who has entered the quarterfinals of every World Badminton Championships she has participated in since 2009. Making it all the more stupendous is her comeback from a knee surgery last year that even sowed …read more
