In badminton, Saina Nehwal is the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal. The Indian shuttler made history when she won the bronze medal in the London 2012 Olympics.
Haryana shuttler caused a stir early in her profession when she won the BWF World Junior Championships in 2008. The next year, she competed in her first Olympics in Beijing, but it wasn’t until London 2012 that she gained international notoriety.
Saina Nehwal was born on March 17, 1990, and began playing badminton at the age of eight after her family relocated from Haryana to Hyderabad. Her mother, who was a state-level badminton player herself, encouraged her to take up the sport because she didn’t speak the local language well and she wanted to help her mother realize her ambition. In 2008, the Indian shuttler achieved this goal by representing India at the Olympic Games in Beijing.
Saina Nehwal upset then-world number five Wang Chen of Hong Kong en way to becoming the first Indian woman to reach the Olympic quarter-finals before falling to Indonesia’s Maria Kristin Yulianti in the Beijing 2008 quarter-finals.
At the age of 16, Saina Nehwal competed in her first World Championships, when she was defeated in the first round by Jiang Yangjioa. She competed in the World Junior Badminton Championships that year, reaching the finals and finishing runner-up.
Saina competed in her first All England Badminton Championships in 2007 but was eliminated in the second round. She went on to lose in the second round of the World Junior Badminton Championships in July. A year later, she won the Commonwealth Youth Championships gold medal in Girls Singles, followed by the World Junior Badminton Championships. Saina qualified for the 2008 Beijing Olympics as an Indian athlete and finished in the quarterfinals.
She became the first Indian badminton player to win BWF Super Series titles when she won the Indonesia Open in 2009. She competed in the World Badminton Championships in August and advanced to the quarterfinals.
She reached the semifinals of the 2010 All England Badminton Championships but lost to Tine Rasmussen of Denmark. She won a bronze medal in the Asian Badminton Championships in April, and gold and bronze medals in the Women’s Singles and Mixed Team events at the Delhi Commonwealth Games in October.
She qualified for the BWF Super Series Masters Final in 2011 and finished runner-up to Wang Yihan of China. After her opponent Wang Xin retired from the competition, she earned the bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics. She defeated Carolina Marin to win the Australian Super Series in 2014.
She and the Indian Women’s Team won bronze at the 2014 Asian Games. She became the first Indian player to reach the World Badminton Championships final in 2015, where she lost to Carolina Marin and earned the Silver medal. Saina settled for bronze in the 2016 Asian Badminton Championships after losing to Wang Yihan.
Saina won a bronze medal in the World Badminton Championships in 2017. She earned two gold medals at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, in the Women’s Singles and Mixed Team events. She earned the bronze medal in the Asian Games in Jakarta in September.
