Indian table tennis star Manika Batra has moved to a career-high women’s singles world No 24 spot on Tuesday when the International Table Tennis Federation updated the leaderboard.
This is the first time any Indian woman has broken into the top 25 singles rankings, equalling the world No 24 mark Sathiyan Gnanasekaran reached in 2019 as the best rank achieved by an Indian in singles.
Batra climbed 15 spots in the rankings charts after a strong run to the quarter-final of the Saudi Smash event last week. During the tournament in Jeddah, Batra stunned then world No 2 Wang Manyu of China (who dropped down one place on Tuesday) before beating world No 14 Nina Mittelham of Germany to make it to the quarter-final.
That run helped the 28-year-old from New Delhi to regain the India no 1 spot from Sreeja Akula, who dropped three places to 41.
In the men’s singles rankings, veteran Achanta Sharath Kamal continues to lead the Indians despite dropping down three places to 40.
Manav Thakkar is the second highest ranked player in the men’s singles division, at 62, followed by Harmeet Desai on 63. Sathiyan has slipped down to 68.
Thakkar and Manush Shah dropped three places to move to 15th in the men’s doubles charts, but Sutirtha Mukherjee and Ayhika Mukherjee, who won a bronze medal at the Asian Games last year, moved up to 13th in women’s doubles.
Batra and Sathiyan, who were once ranked in the top 5 of mixed doubles, have now dropped to 24.
