A few months earlier, Saina Nehwal hailed the move of the Tokyo Olympics being postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic

Since the outbreak of Coronavirus, people have been taking to Twitter from across the country to honour and express gratitude towards these unsung real-life heroes

Irrfan had been ailing ever since he was diagnosed with neuroendocrine tumour a while back, and has been under medical attention for the same

India's star athletes like boxer MC Mary Kom, shuttler Saina Nehwal and wrestler Bajrang Punia hail IOC's decision to postpone Tokyo Games to next year in wake of Corona crisis

Saina hits out at organisers for compromising players' safety by holding All England C'ships for financial reasons

Badminton star Saina Nehwal turned 30 on March 17, 2020

Up against world number three Yamaguchi, it was a tough opening round for Saina, who lost 11-21 8-21 in just 28 minutes on Wednesda

The season's first Super 1000 event witnessed a dramatic build-up in the wake of the COVID19 outbreak, which has claimed over 4000 lives and infected more than 100,000 people globally

Saina, who had made it to the finals in 2015, is in dire need of some ranking points to qualify for the Olympics and she will face a stern test against third seeded Japanese Akane Yamaguchi in the opening round

Sindhu, a 2017 winner, will open her campaign against Hong Kong's Cheung Ngan Yi and is expected to face seventh seed Michelle Li of Canada in the quarterfinals of the World Tour Super 500 tournament, starting March 24

Concerns over the rapid spread of the deadly virus had forced the postponement of the four Olympic qualifying events so far.

Meanwhile, Ajay Jayaram recorded a 21-14, 21-15 victory against France's Thomas Rouxel to enter the men's singles quarterfinals.

Srikanth, who had lost in the first round in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, desperately needs to win a tournament or make it to the quarters and semifinals consistently to qualify for the Olympics

Sania took just 35 minutes to beat her opponent in the first round match. Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Sikki N Reddy also won their mixed doubles first round match against Denmark's Mathias Christiansen and Alexandra Boje 10-21 21-16 21-17

Saina Nehwal's fellow shuttler and hubby Parupalli Kashyap opens up in a book on Olympics.

Saina Nehwal recently joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) along with her sister Chandranshu

After joining the party, Saina said that she is fortunate to be getting a chance to work under the guidance of a very hardworking leader -- Prime Minister Modi.

Asked about the trend of sportspersons joining politics, he said: "It's very good because others may not know what is good for sports. Those who played at a certain level would know (what is good for sports)," he said

Last year, a number of sportspersons including cricketer Gautam Gambhir and Commonwealth Games medal-winning wrestler Babita Phogat had joined BJP.

Parineeti Chopra replaced Shraddha Kapoor as Saina Nehwal in the film. Shraddha had even started filming in September 2018, but she opted out of the film reportedly due to scheduling conflicts.