PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth And Lakshya Sen Headline A Prolific 2021 For Indian Badminton

PV Sindhu's legend grew with a second Olympic medal, Kidambi Srikanth regained his touch with a historic World championship silver and Lakshya Sen continued to dazzle but the listless performance in team events was a significant low for Indian badminton in a topsy-turvy year.

PV Sindhu's legend grew with a second Olympic medal, Kidambi Srikanth regained his touch with a historic World championship silver and Lakshya Sen continued to dazzle but the listless performance in team events was a significant low for Indian badminton in a topsy-turvy year. The COVID-19 pandemic expectedly disrupted the international calender with many events either cancelled or rescheduled but Indian shuttlers grabbed the opportunities even though a title win eluded them.

If Rio Olympics silver-medallist Sindhu led from the front with a bronze medal at Tokyo and a silver at the season-ending World Tour Final, Srikanth and Lakshya dished out a year-end special, scooping a silver and bronze respectively at the World Championships.

It was a moment to rejoice as for the first time, two Indian men returned with medals from one edition of the World Championships, a feat that was earlier achieved by Sindhu and Saina Nehwal in women's singles at the 2017 Glasgow event.

However, neither Sindhu nor Srikanth or Lakshya, who had reached the finals at Dutch Open, could go the full distance as India's title draught continued.

The fact that BWF decided to squeeze nine tournaments into 12 weeks after the resumption of the international circuit also didn't help things as many players were left injured.