Saina, Kashyap's parents to handle their wedding preparations

Saina Nehwal and P Kashyap

India's star shuttlers, Saina Nehwal and Parupalli Kashyap have entrusted their respective parents to oversee all preparations for their December 16 marriage and reception in Hyderabad. "Our parents are working on our behalf and we have not participated in any [ preparatory] activity at all," Saina told mid-day recently.

Saina, 28, didn't want to dwell too much into how her relationship with Kashyap, 32, blossomed. "It was destiny. We are good friends ever since we started playing badminton. We have been to each and every tournament on the international circuit since 2004 when we played Junior World Cup held in Canada.

Our parents knew since then that we are good friends," she remarked. The to- be- married couple trained under national coach Pullela Gopichand for more than a decade and their romance reportedly began in 2007. According to Saina, their parents had no objections whatsoever to them being a couple.

"Our parents are with us and they agreed to this union," she said. It will be interesting to see how the duo goes about their married life while playing on the circuit. Saina has not even given it a thought.

" We do not discuss it at all but I hope everything will be smooth," she said. Indian sport is littered with instances of badminton couples - P Gopichand and PVV Lakshmi, Syed Modi ( deceased) and Ameeta Kulkarni and Uday and Sujata Pawar, whose son Anand, like his mother and father emerged an international player.

Catch up on all the latest sports news and updates here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates