Saina Nehwal is one of the best known female Indian Badminton players. She has the credit of upsetting some of the top seeded players in world championships. She is the first Indian woman to have entered the singles quarter final round of the event at the Olympics and the first Indian to win the World Junior Badminton Championships. Saina was the under-19 national champion.She created history by the winning the prestigious Asian Satellite Badminton tournament (India Chapter) twice, becoming the first player to do so. She was born on March 17, 1990 at Hisar in Haryana. Her father Dr. Harvir Singh and mother Usha Rani were former State Badminton Champions in Haryana. She had her initial schooling and badminton training in Hyderabad. Saina started her badminton training at the age of eight under the guidance of S M Arif, who was a Dronacharya Award winner.In 2006, she became the first Indian woman to win a 4-star tournament, the Philippines Open. She entered the tournament as the 86th seed and went on to stun several top seeded players before defeating Julia Wong Pei Xian of Malaysia for the title. The same year also she was runner up at the 2006. In 2008 she became the first Indian to win the World Junior Badminton Championships by defeating ninth seeded Japanese Sayaka Sato. Saina is on the par with Prakash Padukone and her mentor Pullela Gopichand who both won the all England championships which are of similar status to the super series. She bagged the Khel Ratna award and received the Arjuna award in August, 2009 while her coach Gopichand was presented the Dronacharya award at the same time. Saina has also been awarded with Padma Shri in January 2010. She won 2010 Commonwealth games gold in the women's singles badminton event She is the brand ambassador of Deccan Chargers, an IPL team from Hyderabad. Saina successfully defended her Swiss Open by defeating World No. 2 Shixian Wang of China on March 18, 2012, just the next day after she turned 22. Source: The Hans India
