On the back of their semi-final appearance at the Australian Open Super 300 tournament, reigning men’s doubles national champions B Sumeeth Reddy and Manu Attri jumped by six places to reach No 22 in the latest rankings issued by the Badminton World Federation on Thursday.
While Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty continue to be the best-ranked men’s doubles pair in the country (No 18), Reddy and Attri’s rise means India have two pairs in the top 25 of the world.
In the men’s singles, K Srikanth slipped one spot to fourth, while HS Prannoy remained ninth. The big gainer in that category is youngster Lakshya Sen who has had a impressive run lately in New Zealand and Australia, giving higher-ranked opponents a run for their money. Former junior world No 1 Sen jumped by 11 places to be ranked 88, two spots below his career-best 86 in the senior rankings.
Sameer Verma and Sai Praneeth, who both failed to live up to their seedings in Australia with quarter-final exits, remained in the top 25. Sai moved down one place to be ranked 18th while Verma moved up by four spots to 21st. Viktor Axelsen continued to top the rankings.
There was no movement in the women’s singles category for India for PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal, with both of them giving Australian Open a miss. Sindhu remains No 3, while Nehwal is tenth. Sixteen-year-old Vaishnavi Jakka Reddy moved up by seven spots to No 56 after her second-round exit in Sydney.
In women’s doubles, Sikki Reddy and Ashwini Ponnappa continue to be the best-ranked pair from India, slipping two places to 27th. In mixed doubles, Sikki and Pranaav Jerry Chopra gained two places to move up to 22nd. Kuhoo Garg and Rohan Kapoor were the big gainers, entering the top 50 by moving up seven spots from 57. Ashwini and Satwiksairaj, the pair who impressed at Gold Coast, slipped further by nine places due to inaction since the CWG – they are now 61st.
