Veteran Indian paddler Sharath Kamal surpassed G Sathiyan to become the highest-ranked Indian table tennis player after he grabbed 31st position in the latest senior men’s rankings released by International Table Tennis Federation on Thursday.
Riding on a title-winning performance at the Oman Open last month, veteran Sharath took a leap of seven spots to claim the 31st position in the ITTF charts. “Some positive news, amidst all the negativity currently. Feels great actually. Just the news I needed while I find myself away from the game during this lockdown,” an elated Sharath said.
India’s young rising paddler Mudit Dani also made notable progress in the senior men’s rankings as he broke into the top-200 for the first time in his career. After good performance in the recent events, Dani took a jump of nine places to claim the 200th position while Harmeet Desai (72), Anthony Amalraj (100) and Manav Thakkar (139) are the other Indian men paddlers who have positioned themselves in the top-200.
Meanwhile, in the senior women’s rankings, Manika Batra is at 63rd position while Sutirtha Mukherjee is at 95th. The ITTF rankings will now be frozen until the start of events. ITTF has already suspended all its events until June 30 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The decision was confirmed at the latest ITTF Executive Committee meeting held on April 15 2020, following the recommendations from the World Ranking Group and the Athletes Commission.