At 31, PV Sindhu finds her spark again: She returns to the top six indoors

PV Sindhu believes she is getting close to the best again. At 31, the two-time Olympic medalist is beginning to see the rewards of a period of rebuilding, one that has included changes to her training, a renewed focus on recovery and support from people who have helped her rediscover the joy of playing badminton.

Her victory at the Hylo Open in Germany on Sunday was the latest sign of that progress. Sindhu beat Denmark’s Line Hojmark Kaejrsfeldt 21-12, 21-14 in the final to win her second title of the season and become the first Indian to lift the Hylo Open crown. It was also her second tournament final in a row, following her runner-up finish at the French Open in Paris last week.

With the win, Sindhu returned to the top six of women’s singles for the first time since December 2023. PV Sindhu won the Hylo Open 2026. (AP Photo)

The results came after a season in which promise and frustration often went hand in hand. Sindhu showed flashes of her best attack to win the Super 750 title in Japan before missing out on a medal at the BWF World Championships at home. A recent run in Europe offered something she had been looking for for some time: proof that she could maintain her level across tournaments.

“I think definitely, I think hats off to my whole team,” Sindhu said after winning the Hylo Open. “We planned for that because as you keep growing, it’s important to make things better and be smarter about what you choose.”

She quickly added that there was still work to be done. “There’s still room for improvement, I’d say, and things are getting better. I’m happy with that.”

THE TEAM BEHIND THE COMEBACK

Sindhu credited the people around her for helping her rediscover her best form, especially on days when she felt low and struggled to stay motivated. Her support team, led by Indonesian coach Irwansyah Adi and head of performance Wayne Lombard, played a key role in rebuilding her game and managing her fitness. The team also embraced sports science and technologyy using motion tracking systems and wearables such as WHOOP and Temple, an experimental forehead-mounted device developed by Zomat founder Deepinder Goyal’s team. Designed to monitor signals associated with cerebral blood flow and cognitive load, Temple offers an additional layer of data to help understand the physical and mental demands of an athlete.

Sindhu is working with Goyal’s team to identify meaningful performance metrics and recently described the device as a “game changer.”

She also dedicated her Hylo Open triumph to Lombard, whose birthday coincided with her title run.

Speaking to IndiaToday.in, Vimal Kumar, India’s former coach, also pointed to her fitness as one of the most encouraging aspects of the recent run. He said Sindhu looked physically fit and praised her strength and conditioning team for the work they did behind the scenes.

“For a player of her experience at this level, strength and conditioning are essential,” Kumar said. “You can work on the technical aspects on the court, but at this age the key is to take care of your body and follow a proper strength and conditioning program.”

Kumar also believes that Sindhu can improve further by reducing unforced errors. So the next challenge is to turn a strong set of results into lasting consistency.

FIRST SIGN OF A TURN

The roots of Sindhu’s revival go way back before her recent European run. In September 2025, a leg ligament injury ended her season prematurely. She had to retire from competition and spend months focusing on rehabilitation, with her time away from the court forcing her to rethink how she approaches training and recovery.

Her husband Venkata Datta Sai, whom she married in December 2024, became an important part of this process. In a post earlier this year, Sindhu offered a glimpse of the renewal experiments that have become part of life at home. Inversion table, red light therapy, temperature controlled mattresses, cherry juice, recovery shoes, breathing exercises and cryotherapy were all part of the routine.

There was humor in the way she described it. Her husband, she wrote, was constantly finding new things to try, and she reached a point where she simply asked what the next experiment would be. But beneath the light-hearted description was a serious effort to understand what her body needed after years of injuries and demanding seasons.

The work was not limited to physical recovery. Sindhu and her team also spent hours studying footage from the previous five years, replaying matches and finding ways to improve their game.

One interview, however, offered a different kind of help.

“One thing I will always be thankful for is Virat (Kohli) bhai,” Sindhu wrote.

“I reached out to him at one of the worst points of my career. The injuries were piling up, the results weren’t coming and I just needed someone who understood me. He responded within minutes and we met the very next day.”

Details of their conversation remained private. But Sindhu’s narrative suggested that talking to someone who understood the pressures of top-level sport helped her through the tough times. Meanwhile, her husband noticed a message from Kohli about rediscovering the joy of competition. She became one of the ideas around which Sindhu’s comeback was built.

JAPAN OPEN GAVE HER FIRST BIG AWARD

Results began to follow in the middle of the year, although the development was not linear.

Sindhu reached the quarterfinals of the Singapore Open in May before losing to world number one An Se-young. She won her opening match at the Indonesia Open in June, but was beaten again by the South Korean in the next round. She then reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open, where she was stopped by Akane Yamaguchi in advancing to the final.

Those results showed that Sindhu can still go deep into tournaments, but the breakthrough she needed came in Tokyo in July.

At the Japan Open, Sindhu defeated Yamaguchi 21–17, 21–17 in the final to become the first Indian to win a women’s singles title. The victory was particularly significant as Yamaguchi was a three-time world champion playing in front of her home crowd. Sindhu’s win also ended an over two-year wait for a BWF World Tour title and gave her her first Super 750 crown.

The manner of victory was as important as the result. Sindhu played aggressively, controlling the rally and not allowing Yamaguchi to dictate the match. It was a reminder of the attacking game that made her a world champion in 2019 and an Olympic medalist in 2016 and 2020.

But the rest of the season didn’t go well. She exited the China Open in the round of 16 and lost to Wang Zhiyi in the round of 16 at the World Championships in August. At the Asian Games in September, she reached the quarterfinals of the women’s singles, but lost to Chen Yufei in three games.

There was still encouragement from the team event. Sindhu faced Yamaguchi in the women’s quarterfinals and won a hard-fought match 23-21, 18-21, 21-11 that lasted one hour and 12 minutes. Later in the women’s singles, she was beaten by China’s Chen Yu Fei in the quarter-finals, but again in a 3-game contest that lasted 1 hour and 15 minutes. PV Sindhu is out in the quarterfinals of the 2026 Asian Games. (AP Photo)

Both were tests of her resilience and ability to hold her own against high-profile opposition, although her individual campaign later ended before the medal rounds.

NON-OBJECTS DID NOT DISAPPEAR

The weeks following the Asian Games were another reminder that comebacks rarely follow a straight line. Sindhu lost to Ratchanok Intanon in the quarterfinals of the Arctic Open and suffered a first-round exit at the Denmark Open when she went down to Yvonne Li in three games after the opening match.

Denmark’s result was particularly disappointing as it came after a breakthrough at the Japan Open. But Sindhu’s next two tournaments showed a different level of consistency.

At the French Open in October, she reached the final after surviving a three-game semi-final against Japan’s Hina Akechi. In the title match, she handled the opening game against An Se-young, winning 21-16 and putting the world number one under pressure. An eventually turned the match around to win 11-21, 21-16, 21-12, but Sindhu kept working for the title, securing her first match against the South Korean since 2023.

The defeat did not erase the significance of the run. For Sindhu, reaching the final was proof that the long hours of rehabilitation and technical work are beginning to translate into results. The following week she returned to court in Germany and went one step further.

Sindhu won all five of her Hylo Open matches in straight games. She defeated compatriot Anmol Kharb in the semi-finals before dominating the final against Kjaersfeldt, winning 21-12, 21-14 in 39 minutes. The title was her second of the year after Japan and capped off a fortnight in which she reached two finals and won one.

Sindhu herself does not consider the Hylo Open title the end of the process. She’s talked about getting smarter about her training as she gets older, while staying calm and acknowledging there’s still room for improvement. He will also have to prepare for the proposed change to a 15-point scoring format next year, which will require players to adjust their approach to matches.

For now, recent results offer reason for optimism. The Japan Open showed that Sindhu can still beat one of the world’s best to win a major title. The French Open showed she can push the world No.1, while the Hylo Open showed she can bounce back from a painful final defeat to win another tournament.

The comeback is still in the works. But after a year of rebuilding, the trophies are coming again.

– The end