Bindra, Tendulkar, Anand hail Sindhu’s brilliant effort
Abhinav Bindra in his message for Sindhu said that he wasn’t as heartbroken after missing out on a medal himself as he is today. India’s only tennis medallist Leander Paes said that the Hyderabad girl should be proud of her achievement.
Published : Aug 20, 2016 00:14 IST
India’s biggest sporting legends Sachin Tendulkar, Abhinav Bindra and Vishwanathan Anand today hailed PV Sindhu for her valiant performance in the Olympic final against world number one Carolina Marin.
Abhinav Bindra in his message for Sindhu said that he wasn’t as heartbroken after missing out on a medal himself as he is today. India’s only individual Olympic gold medallist tweeted:“I think I’m more heartbroken today than I was a week ago! Well played @Pvsindhu1 you are an inspiration to me!”
Tendulkar, who has had inspiring messages for all the Indian athletes wrote:“Well played India’s youngest individual @Olympics medal winner @Pvsindhu1. You have won our hearts with the splendid performance.”
Chess legend Viswanathan Anand tweeted:“Well done #PVSindhu. its very little that separates a winner & a finalist. Proud of you. Enjoy the silver. well deserved”
India’s only tennis medallist Leander Paes said that the Hyderabad girl should be proud of her achievement. “@Pvsindhu1 you should be very proud of yourself, all of India is!! the way you played & fought hard, true warrior!! Congrats.”
Multiple World cue-sport champion Pankaj Advani is happy that Sindhu gave Marin a run for her money. “Take a bow PV Sindhu. You gave the World Champ a run for her money. You’ve won all our hearts??”
India’s boxing superstar Vijender Singh wrote:“Apart from the #Silver #PVSindhu ,you have won hearts of a billion ppl and developed interest in badminton amongst millions.Mera Naman aapko”
Multiple doubles Grand Slam champion Mahesh Bhupathi said:“You are my Hero @Pvsindhu1 ...amazing fighting qualities....” Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan was also ecstatic with the shuttler’s performance.
“#PVSindhu you played your heart out ! All of India is so so proud of you .. Thank for giving us that moment of pride !!!” India’s hockey captain PR Sreejesh termed the silver as something equivalent to gold. “This silver is equal to gold for us ...@Pvsindhu1 you are a real fighter”.
Our Mumbai Correspondent adds:
Nikhil Kanetkar, the 2004 Olympic shuttler, was heartened by the overall performance of India's badminton contingent.
"Overall it’s commendable. Even with the doubles, this is the first time ever that we had a men’s doubles pair qualifying for the Olympics. They also went ahead and beat the Japanese pair. Singles were obviously great. It was unfortunate for Saina that she injured her knee at a bad time. Still we couldn’t have asked for anything better. Srikanth almost beating Lin Dan and Sindhu finishing on the podium was just great.
Moving forward, I think, after Saina’s medal in 2012, we saw a big surge in badminton all over the country. It’s just going to grow after Sindhu’s achievement. I am sure we’re going to have a lot more kids playing badminton. Hopefully we get a lot more support as well from various sectors, be it government, or corporate sector or whatever. Normally what happens is we see the Sainas and Sindhus and Srikanths and Kashyaps, but there are many more talented players who also need the support. This is going to happen now. I think it’s a good time to look forward to. You never know, we had bronze in London, silver in Rio, maybe gold in Tokyo. Let’s see."