she took up badminton at the age of eight to express herself, as she did not know the local language well enough to socialise with other kids. Her parents played badminton for a number of years. Her mother, Usha Rani, was a state level badminton player in Haryana. Nehwal took up badminton to fulfill her mother's dream of becoming a national level badminton player, while her sister played volleyball. Her father, who was among the top players in the university circuit, used his provident fund to invest in good badminton training for her. After moving to Hyderabad in 1998, she was enrolled in a karate class by her parents, which she continued for a year and earned a brown belt. She trained under Pullela Gopichand in his academy Gopichand Badminton Academy. In 2014, she parted with Gopichand and joined Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy in Bangalore and trained under U. Vimal Kumar under whose training she became World number one; she later in 2017 returned to train under Gopichand. In his book Dreams of a Billion: India and the Olympic Games’, Gopichand said that he felt miserable when she left him and went to train in Bangalore. Career 2005–2007 In 2005, at the age of 15, Nehwal has won an Asian Satellite tournament in New Delhi, beating Aparna Popat in the final in straight games. In 2006, Nehwal became the under-19 national champion and claimed her second Indian Asian Satellite tournament. In May, at age 16, she became the first Indian woman and the youngest player from Asia to win a 4-star tournament – the Philippines Open. Entering the tournament as the 86th seed, she went on to stun several top-seeded players including the then world number two Huaiwen Xu before defeating Julia Wong Pei Xian of Malaysia for the title. A few months after she entered the International badminton circuit, Nehwal participated at the World Championships where she lost to Jiang Yanjiao of China. The same year Nehwal reached the final of 2006 BWF World Junior Championships where she lost a hard-fought match against top seed Chinese Wang Yihan. She also competed at the Doha Asian Games. In 2007, at a very young age of 17, Nehwal went on to take part in the All England, where she challenged experienced Wang Chen in round 2, but went down in 3 games 21–17, 13–21, 16–21. She represented India at the Sudirman