Who became India's first badminton world champion in 2019?

• Sindhu. On 25 August 2019, Pusarla Venkata Sindhu won the women's singles title at the BWF World Championships in Basel, Switzerland. She defeated Nozomi Okuhara of Japan 21-7, 21-7 in the final, which lasted only 38 minutes. She became the first Indian to win a badminton world championship title.

Sindhu at the World Championships:

She has won five medals at the World Championships, a record for an Indian:

• Bronze in 2013 (Guangzhou) and 2014 (Copenhagen).
• Silver in 2017 (Glasgow), after a famous 110-minute final against Okuhara, and in 2018 (Nanjing).
• Gold in 2019 (Basel).

More about P. V. Sindhu:

She was born on 5 July 1995 in Hyderabad, Telangana. Her parents were national-level volleyball players.

She trained at the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy.

She won silver at the 2016 Rio Olympics, becoming the first Indian woman to win an Olympic silver medal, and bronze at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, becoming the first Indian woman to win two individual Olympic medals.

She won gold in women's singles at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

She received the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna (2016), the Padma Shri (2015) and the Padma Bhushan (2020).

She married Venkata Datta Sai in December 2024.

Other Indian badminton milestones:

Prakash Padukone won India's first World Championship medal (bronze) in 1983.

Saina Nehwal won silver at the 2015 World Championships and bronze at the 2012 London Olympics, India's first Olympic badminton medal. She was also the first Indian woman to become world number one (2015).

Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa won women's doubles bronze at the 2011 World Championships.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Saina Nehwal won silver at the 2015 World Championships, not gold.
• ✗Ashwini Ponnappa and Jwala Gutta won a doubles bronze in 2011, not a world title.