Why PV Sindhu will go down in history as India's best-ever badminton player?

India's badminton queen PV Sindhu turns 25 today. Born in Hyderabad in 1995, Sindhu has is arguably the greatest badminton player India has ever produced. The sheer volume of her achievements speaks for her mastery in the sport. Had everything been normal, Sindhu would have been focused for winning the coveted gold medal at the Olympics, which was scheduled to start this month. Now, she has to wait for at least another year to take a shot at it.

At just 25, Sindhu has been able to make some mammoth strides in badminton which no other Indian could ever do. She has five world championship medals, including a gold, tagged country's first world champion, along with a silver (most successful) medal at the Olympics, gold at Commonwealth Games, silver and bronze at Asian Games. Her yearly earnings are more than $5.5 million with a dozen endorsements, a milestone which is big when comes to India - a cricket crazy nation.

One thing that set Sindhu part in her league is the number crunching. In senior rankings, Sindhu has played 468 matches, won 328 of them and lost 140. She has a winning percentage of 70 with a career-high ranking of 2 alongside 15 career titles.

At the 2013 World Championships, Sindhu beat higher-ranked Wang Yihan and Wang Shixian to become the first Indian women's singles player to win a medal at the event. She has been a giant killer throughout her career. Sindhu has won three Superseries titles, one World Tour Finals title and six Grand Prix Gold level crowns on the tour. She has proved herself where it mattered the most like the world championships (reaching three consecutive finals) along with the summit clashes in Rio and the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games.

Lately, however, she has suffered from inconsistent performances. In the last 19 tournaments, she has entered, she has been knocked out in the quarter-finals or before 14 times. Sindhu has all the necessary elements in the her to better her performance and take the game to the next level like Carolina Marin of Spain. From being India's greatest to become one of the greats in the world would be the journey Sindhu should pursue from now onwards, with consistent form.

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