Her father, Ramana, was a member of the Indian volleyball team that won the bronze medal in the 1986 Seoul Asian Games, received the Arjuna Award in 2000 for his contribution to the sport.
[30] She first learned the basics of the sport with the guidance of Mehboob Ali at the badminton courts of the Indian Railway Institute of Signal Engineering and Telecommunications in Secunderabad.
[31] While profiling her career, a correspondent with The Hindu wrote:"The fact that she reports on time at the coaching camps daily, traveling a distance of 56 km from her residence, is perhaps a reflection of her willingness to complete her desire to be a good badminton player with the required hard work and commitment.
[44] In the China Masters Superseries tournament, she stunned London 2012 Olympics gold medalist Li Xuerui, beating her 21–19, 9–21, 21–16 and entered the semi-finals.
[48] She finished runner-up in the Syed Modi India Grand Prix Gold event held in Lucknow in December, after going down to Indonesia's Lindaweni Fanetri in 3 games in the final.
[49] Sindhu stunned China's Wang Shixian in the second round of the Asian Championships in 3 tough games to reach the quarter-final, but lost to Eriko Hirose of Japan in yet another 3-game clash.
[53] She set up a meeting with another higher-seeded Chinese player, Wang Shixian, and beat her 21–18, 21–17 to become only India's second medalist in the singles events at the World Championships since Prakash Padukone's bronze medal in 1983.
[57] Sindhu reached the final of the 2014 India Open Grand Prix Gold but lost to her senior compatriot Saina Nehwal.
[59] She reached the semi-final stage of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in the women's singles competition, which she lost narrowly to eventual gold medalist Michelle Li of Canada.
[65] However, this time, she suffered defeat against her Korean opponent Sung Ji-hyun in a close quarter-finals match 21–17, 19–21, 16–21, narrowly missing out on a third consecutive World Championship medal.
[66] In October, playing at the Denmark Open, Sindhu reached her maiden Superseries tournament final, defeating three seeded players – Tai Tzu-ying, Wang Yihan and Carolina Marín.
[67] In November, the defending champion Sindhu won her third successive women's singles title at the Macau Open Grand Prix Gold after defeating Japan's Minatsu Mitani in the final 21–9, 21–23, 21–14.
[69] In January, Sindhu won the Malaysia Masters Grand Prix Gold women's singles title after beating Scotland's Kirsty Gilmour in the final.
[74] She later faced sixth seeded Japanese star Nozomi Okuhara in the semi-finals and won in straight games, ensuring a podium finish.
[89] In August, she took charge as the Deputy Collector in Krishna District in the Chief Commissioner of Land Administration (CCLA) office under the Revenue Department of the Government of Andhra Pradesh.
[91] Owing to her consistent performances, she qualified yet again for the Superseries Finals, and was also nominated for the BWF Female Player of the Year Award, which was eventually won by Chen Qingchen of China.
[92] In the group stage of the Dubai World Superseries Finals, she won all of her matches against He Bingjiao (2–1), Sayaka Sato (2–0) and Akane Yamaguchi (2–0) to progress to the semi-final.
[95] At the All England Open Championships, she made it to the last four, before losing to world number 3 Akane Yamaguchi in the semi-final with a close 21–19, 19–21, 18–21 scoreline.
In the group stage, she defeated defending champion Akane Yamaguchi (2–0), top seed Tai Tzu-ying (2–1) and USA's Beiwen Zhang (2–0) to progress to the semi-finals.
She opened her campaign with comfortable straight-game victories over Pai Yu-po and ninth seed Beiwen Zhang in successive rounds.
She defeated Tai, coming from a game down 12–21, 23–21, 21–19 to make the semi-final and secure a fifth World Championship medal, the joint-most in the history of women's singles badminton.
[111] In the semi-final, she defeated third seed Chen Yufei in straight games in dominating fashion, 21–7, 21–14, to enter her third consecutive World Championships final.
[114] She competed in the World Tour Finals in Guangzhou as the defending champion but failed to reach the knockout phase after losing to Chen Yufei (1–2) and Akane Yamaguchi (1–2) in successive rounds.
She won both of her group matches against Israel's Ksenia Polikarpova[121] and Hong Kong's Cheung Ngan Yi[122] to progress towards the knockout stage.
[123] She put up a dominating display to outmanoeuvre fourth seed Akane Yamaguchi of Japan 21–13, 22–20, placing herself in the last four stage, also becoming the only Indian shuttler to reach two consecutive Olympic semi-finals.
In the semi-final, she beat Akane Yamaguchi 21–15, 15–21, 21–19 in an exciting clash to make a third final at the year-end championships, only the second women's singles player to do so.
[143] Her season was once again cut short, this time at the French Open in October, where she pulled out of her second round match with a knee injury.
[148] At the end of the year, Sindhu won the 2024 Syed Modi International title beating Wu Luoyu of China in the final.
[150] An Economic Times report published in March 2017 noted that she is second only to Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli when it comes to earnings from each day of brand endorsements.
[151] She has endorsement deals with JBL, Bridgestone Tyres, sports drink Gatorade, pain reliever ointment Moov, online fashion store Myntra, e-commerce portal Flipkart, phone maker Nokia and electronics major Panasonic.