Saina Nehwal has been catapulted to the league of top India sports persons after her gold medal winning show at the Commonwealth Games.
Saina delivered a Gold at a time when the entire nation had its eyes on her as it helped India to a historic second place finish at the Games.
The ace shuttler has been honoured with the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award recently.
The 20-year won three back-to-back titles - Indian Grand Prix, Singapore Super Series and Indonesian Open. Riding on her performance, Saina became World No. 2 badminton player.
In 2006, Saina became the first Indian woman to win the Philippines Open. In 2008, she became the first Indian to win the World Junior Badminton Championships. Same year in the Beijing Olympics, she became the first Indian woman to advance to the quarter-finals. In September 2008, she won the Yonex Chinese Taipei Open.
In 2009, she won the BWF Super Series title. Last year, she was awarded with the Arjuna Award and earlier this year she was bestowed with the Padma Shri award.