P. V. Sindhu
Badminton · India
Two-time Olympic medalist and India’s most decorated shuttler — still winning Super 750 titles into her thirties.
Updated Jul 23, 2026
- Team
- India national team / BWF World Tour
- Active since
- 2012–13 (senior international breakthrough)
- Has played for
- Pullela Gopichand Academy · India Uber Cup / national teams
Key stats
- Olympic medals: silver (Rio 2016), bronze (Tokyo 2020)
- 2019 BWF World Championships gold
- 2026 Japan Open Super 750 champion (beat Akane Yamaguchi in the final)
- Multiple Super Series / World Tour titles across a decade at world-class level
- Padma Bhushan; among India’s highest-earning athletes for years
- Born 5 July 1995, Hyderabad — trained under Pullela Gopichand
Pusarla Venkata Sindhu was born on 5 July 1995 in Hyderabad and trained under Pullela Gopichand. She announced herself as India’s next badminton great while still a teenager and then delivered on the biggest stages.
Rio 2016 brought Olympic silver; Tokyo 2020 a bronze; 2019 a World Championships gold. Between those peaks she collected World Tour titles and became a commercial giant in India — billboards, endorsements, and a generation of juniors who grew up watching her, not only Saina Nehwal.
Form dipped and titles dried up for stretches, which is normal at the top of women’s singles. In July 2026 she won the Japan Open Super 750 in Tokyo, beating Akane Yamaguchi in the final and ending a long wait for a major tour crown.
Sindhu’s career is the blueprint and the warning for Indian badminton: Olympic medals create a national industry, but staying inside the world’s top eight after 30 is a different sport. The Japan Open mattered because it showed the old big-match Sindhu can still show up — which is exactly what younger Indian singles players still measure themselves against.
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