Aside from hitting badminton shuttles as part of her intensive training in the field of badminton, shuttler Saina Nehwal proved that she’s more than that as she was awarded with the Sports Person of the Year award for the year 2008-2009 at the ninth PSPB annual awards held in New Delhi on Wednesday. World billiards champ Pankaj Advani and cricket player Virender Sehwag were named Sports Persons of the Year for the year 2007 - 2008.

The Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) bestowed the awards for the aforementioned years. In the past, this event lost its luster due to instances where awardees were not present to accept the awards, which gave an impression that the awards are not that important.

This time, Advani together with chess master Abhijit Gupta and badminton players Trupti Murgunde and Shruti Kurien were present in the awards ceremony. Table tennis great Subhajit Saha was also seen mingling with the group of attendees.

Former table tennis player Monalisa Mehta received the Lifetime Achievement award for the year 2007 - 2008 while Romeo James, a former hockey goalkeeper, received the same award, this time for the year 2008 - 2009.
Here are the other awards conferred:

Meritorious Sports Person of the year: Rajpal Singh (hockey), Koneru Humpy (chess), Tushar Khandekar (hockey), Ishant Sharma (Cricket) and Abhijit Gupta (chess).

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