Hyderabad: After Alan Budikusuma and Susi Susanti (both were 1992 Barcelona Olympics gold medalist), Lee Chong Wei and Wong Mew Choo (badminton legends from Malaysia), Lin Dan and Xie Xinfeng (former badminton World Champions), Chen Long and Wang Shixian (former World No. 1), Chris Adcock and Gabrielle Adcock (England’s top mixed doubles pair), Saina Nehwal and Parupalli Kashyap of India are set to be the next husband and wife combination who came from the sport of badminton.
According to Indian media, Nehwal and Kashyap are set to get married on December 16 in a private ceremony that will be attended by 100 people, followed by a grand reception on December 21.
“Both families had been planning the wedding for a while now. Now they have finalized the date. The arrangements are all for December 16,” said a family member who knew about the wedding.
Kashyap and Nehwal met at Pullela Gopichand’s badminton academy in 2005 where the two trained together. They were said to have been dating for at least the past 10 years, but managed to hide their relationships by usually hanging out in a group that comprised of Kidambi Srikanth, HS Prannoy and Gurusaidutt.
The 32-year-old Kashyap, who won the gold medal in 2014 Commonwealth Games, used to ranked as high as World No. 6, but his career has been marred by long spells of injury, and is currently ranked World No. 57.
Meanwhile, Nehwal has established herself as one of the best female badminton player from India as she was ranked as high as World No. 1 and has won a total of 20 major international badminton titles.
After winning the bronze medal in last month’s Asian Games, Nehwal had included Kashyap’s name in her thank you message on twitter along with coach Gopichand and her trainer.
“I would like to thank Gopi Sir for all the hardwork and support … also @parupallik for giving me great match inputs and for helping me in sessions before the #AsianGame2018 … lot of efforts of Physios would like to thank @ArvindDNigam4 and Kiran challagundla sir,” Saina tweeted.
