Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu has an eye on the world No 1 ranking ahead of what will be a challenging 2018 season. Currently ranked third, the 22-year-old reached a career-best world No 2 earlier this year and is confident that consistent performances will automatically take her to the top spot.
“I want to see myself as world No 1 in the upcoming season,” Sindhu said, as reported by PTI. “I am at [world No] 3 now and it depends on tournaments: if you play well, you will automatically get the ranking. So I am not thinking much about the rankings. I just have to play well and I know I will automatically be there.”
Sindhu had a great 2017 in which she won two Superseries titles in India and Korea, and also reached the final of the world championships and the year-end Superseries Finals. She played long matches in both those finals, with the summit clash at the Worlds clocking an hour and 50 minutes, and Sindhu believes this will be the trend going forward.
“World championship [final] was the longest match from my side and after that I could see that the matches in women’s singles [were] prolonging like one and one-and-a-half hours even though the scores are here and there,” she said.
“I think each game is going upto 40 minutes. In the current circuit, there are the Chinese, the Japanese, [Nozomi] Okuhara, Tai Tzu Ying, so I don’t think there are short matches any more,” she added.
2018 will provide tougher challenges considering the Commonwealth Games and Asiad will also take place. Sindhu was speaking to the media after guiding the Chennai Smashers to a 4-3 win over Mumbai Rockets in the Premier Badminton League on Wednesday.
With inputs from PTI
