PV Sindhu has been the leading badminton star of India for the last five years. Having made her debut back in 2011, she has not looked back ever since. PV Sindhu bagged the Gold medal on her debut at the 2011 Commonwealth Youth Games. Her crowning moment came when she made her way to a Silver medal at the Rio 2016 Olympics. In doing so, she became India’s first badminton player to play in a badminton final at the Olympics. Read further to know more about PV Sindhu’s initial years in badminton and her rise to fame.

PV Sindhu’s humble beginnings 

Pusarla Venkata Sidhu (PV Sindhu) was born to parents - PV Ramana and P Vijaya. Both her parents were national-level volleyball players. In fact, her father was also a Bronze medalist with the national volleyball team in the 1986 Seoul Asian Games. Sindhu’s elder sister was also a national-level handball player. Despite strong ties to volleyball, PV Sindhu opted to take up badminton at a very young age.

PV Sindhu started with training in badminton under the guidance of Mehboob Ali in Secunderabad. After she was done with basic training, PV Sindhu joined the highly-acclaimed Pullela Gopichand Gopichand Badminton Academy. A report in The Hindu stated that PV Sindhu had to travel a distance of 56 km from her residence to reach training camps. Sindhu put in a lot of hard work as a kid in order to train with Gopichand.

Under the tutelage of Pullela Gopichand, Sindhu won a host of titles as a budding badminton player. The 24-year old won the singles title at the Sub-juniors in Pondicherry and the All India Ranking tournament in Pune. She also bagged the under-14 team gold medal at the 51st National State Games in India. PV Sindhu has repeatedly credited her parents for all the success she has achieved in recent years. Coincidentally, Sindhu was crowned world champion on the occasion of her mother’s birthday and dedicated the gold medal to her as well. 

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PV Sindhu's achievements

Following her bronze medal the 2013 World Championships, PV Sindhu was bestowed with the Arjuna award. The Olympian was also awarded the Padma Shri a year later, after impressing at the Asian Championships and Commonwealth Games. However, her moment of glory came in 2016 at the Rio Olympics where she bagged a silver medal. PV Sindhu was awarded the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award post that achievement.

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