P. V. Sindhu is the only Indian badminton player to win two Olympic medals and the only one to be crowned world champion. She took silver at Rio 2016 and bronze at Tokyo 2020, and in 2019 she beat Nozomi Okuhara 21-7, 21-7 in Basel to win the world title, her fifth World Championship medal. Tall, aggressive and hard to hurry, she has been at or near the top of the women’s game for more than a decade, and in July 2026 she was still winning titles.
Name: Pusarla Venkata Sindhu | Born: 5 July 1995, Hyderabad | Sport: Badminton | Event: Women’s singles
A family of volleyball players
Sindhu’s parents both played volleyball. Her father, P. V. Ramana, won a bronze medal at the 1986 Asian Games and received the Arjuna Award in 2000. Her mother, P. Vijaya, played at national level. Sindhu chose badminton instead and trained at Pullela Gopichand’s academy in Hyderabad, where Gopichand was her main coach until the Rio Olympics.
Her height and reach suited an attacking style built on steep smashes and pressure at the net. She rose quickly through the junior ranks and was soon beating established names on the senior circuit.
Five World Championship medals
At 18 she won bronze at the 2013 World Championships in Guangzhou, losing only to Ratchanok Intanon in the semi-final. She won bronze again in Copenhagen in 2014. In Glasgow in 2017 she reached the final and lost 19-21, 22-20, 20-22 to Okuhara in one of the longest and toughest matches the women’s game had seen. She lost the 2018 final in Nanjing to Carolina Marin.
The breakthrough came in Basel in August 2019. Sindhu met Okuhara again in the final and beat her 21-7, 21-7 in under 40 minutes, becoming India’s first world champion in badminton.
Rio silver and Tokyo bronze
Sindhu went into the 2016 Olympics in Rio ranked outside the top eight and came out of it a national star. She beat higher-ranked players on her way to the final, where she took the first game against Carolina Marin before losing 21-19, 12-21, 15-21. It was India’s first Olympic silver in badminton and the first by an Indian woman in any sport.
At Tokyo 2020, held in 2021, she lost the semi-final to Tai Tzu-ying but beat He Bingjiao 21-13, 21-15 for the bronze. That made her the first Indian woman to win two individual Olympic medals. Her third Olympics, in Paris in 2024, ended in the round of 16, when she lost to He Bingjiao.
Titles on the world tour
Her first Superseries Premier title came at the 2016 China Open, where she beat Sun Yu in the final. In 2018 she won the BWF World Tour Finals, beating Okuhara again, the first Indian to win the season-ending event. She reached a career-best world ranking of No. 2 in April 2017.
She has also won three Syed Modi International titles, the latest in 2024 against Wu Luoyu.
Commonwealth and Asian Games
Sindhu won singles bronze at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. On the Gold Coast in 2018 she took silver in the singles, losing the final to Saina Nehwal, and gold in the mixed team event. In Birmingham in 2022 she finally won singles gold, beating Canada’s Michelle Li in the final, and added a mixed team silver. At the Asian Games she won a team bronze in 2014 and singles silver in Jakarta in 2018, where Tai Tzu-ying beat her in the final.
Recent seasons
Sindhu married Venkata Datta Sai on 22 December 2024. In 2025 she reached the quarter-finals of the World Championships in Paris and later ended her season early with a foot injury. She was also elected to the BWF Athletes’ Commission.
She came back strongly in 2026. On 19 July, ranked No. 10 in the world, she beat Akane Yamaguchi 21-17, 21-17 to win the Japan Open, her first title since the 2024 Syed Modi event and the first Japan Open won by an Indian. At the World Championships in New Delhi in August she lost in the round of 16 to China’s Wang Zhiyi, 11-21, 21-15, 17-21.
Career record and honours
- Olympic Games: silver, Rio 2016; bronze, Tokyo 2020
- World Championships: gold, Basel 2019; silver, Glasgow 2017 and Nanjing 2018; bronze, Guangzhou 2013 and Copenhagen 2014
- BWF World Tour Finals: champion, 2018
- Commonwealth Games: singles gold, Birmingham 2022; singles silver and mixed team gold, Gold Coast 2018; singles bronze, Glasgow 2014; mixed team silver, 2022
- Asian Games: singles silver, Jakarta 2018; team bronze, Incheon 2014
- Titles include China Open 2016, Syed Modi International 2024 and Japan Open 2026
- Highest world ranking: No. 2 (April 2017)
- Arjuna Award, 2013
- Padma Shri, 2015
- Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna, 2016
- Padma Bhushan, 2020
