India's former world number one Saina Nehwal is to marry fellow badminton player Parupalli Kashyap in December, local media reported on Monday. Nehwal confirmed her wedding with the 57th-ranked Kashyap to the mass-circulation Times of India daily, saying the time was right to exchange marriage vows.

Rumours about their love affair had been swirling for some time but the pair always maintained a studied silence util now. Nehwal, 28, said she had started dating Kashyap, 32, in 2007 after they began going on tours together but delayed the marriage in order to focus on their careers. "In the competitive world that we live in, it is difficult to get close to someone. But somehow we both found it very easy to talk to each other," she told the English-language daily.