Parupalli Kashyap has been a mainstay in the Indian badminton circuit for quite some time now. The 29-year-old, who first burst on to the scene in 2005, has endured many ups-and-downs during his career and still remains a force to reckon with on the international circuit.
Here we take a look at ten points from his life which all the badminton fans in the nation should know.
1.Parupalli Kashyap was born in Hyderabad to Uday Shankar and Subhadra Shankar on 8th September 1986. His father had a transferable job, due to which he had to switch cities quite frequently while he was young.
2.He started playing badminton at a very young age and at the age of 11 he enrolled into a training camp which was conducted by renowned badminton coach and Dronacharya awardee and Padma Shri S.M. Arif. He also received training in the Padukone academy while in Bangalore for three years.
3.Kashyap was diagnosed with Asthma in 2004 which was a threat to his then budding badminton career. However, with proper medications and treatment, his condition started to improve and later he overcame the hurdle.
4.The 29-year-old started to train at the Gopichand academy in Hyderabad, under the guidance of Pullela Gopichand, upon his return from Bangalore. Gopichand himself has been one of the most famous sports personalities in India, and he continues to remain a key figure in his badminton career, helping him out whenever the need arises.
5.He rose to prominence in the national circuit when he won the boys' singles title at the National Junior Open Badminton Championships in 2005. It was after he won the Junior Badminton championship that he started to take part in the international tournaments.
6.Kashyap broke into the top 100 of the World rankings in 2006, when he reached the 64th position after qualifying for the semifinals of the Bitburger Open, where he defeated the World no 19 Przemysaw Wacha.
7.The Hyderabad-born shuttler was at his brilliant best in the national tournaments in 2006-07. He won the gold medal at the National Games, where he defeated the then defending champion Chetan Anand in the final. He then won the gold medal at All-India PSPB inter-unit badminton championship in 2006 and then another gold medal in the Canara Bank all-India senior badminton championship.
8.Kashyap’s best performances for the nation have come in the Commonwealth Games. He has featured in two editions of the Games, winning a silver in Delhi in 2010 and then going one better in 2014, winning Gold in Glasgow in the Men’s Singles.
8.He reached the quarterfinal of the London Olympics 2012 and became the first Indian men to reach an Olympic quarterfinal in Badminton by doing so.
9.Kashyap won the Indian Open Grand Prix gold in 2012 which propelled him to the 13th position in the Badminton World Federation (BWF) rankings. Then next year in April, he went on to achieve a career best ranking of 6th.
10.In 2015, Kashyap reached the semifinals of the Indonesia Superseries but his season was cut short after she sustained a severe calf injury at the French Open in September, that has kept him out of action since. The shuttler was picked for his hometown franchise the Hyderabad Hunters in the 2016 PBL.
