The latest BWF Rankings that released on Thursday did not prove to be a favourable one for the top Indian shuttlers. Rio Olympic silver medal-winning PV Sindhu saw her ranking slip out of the top 10 after a second round defeat to the eventual champion He Bingjiao at last week’s French Open Superseries.
Bingjiao and Sindhu thus exchanged places in the latest rankings. While the Chinese climbed to her career-best ranking of 10, the Indian slid down one ranking spot to 11th.
Sindhu has not been able to find her groove on her return to the BWF circuit following her memorable Olympic campaign and suffered back-to-back second-round defeats at both the Denmark Open and the French Open.
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Saina Nehwal, who is set to come back at this month’s China Open, meanwhile remains static at 6th. 19-year-old Ruthvika Shivani Gadde, who was in action at the Bitburger Open this week, also maintains her highest career ranking of 54th.
Big jump for Bahrain International Challenge winner Pratul Joshi
In men’s singles, the injured Kidambi Srikanth dropped one place to 15th while Ajay Jayaram slid down two spots to 23rd. HS Prannoy too had the same fate, slipping down a solitary rung to 28th and Sameer Verma plummeted two spots to 44th.
The only Indian in the top 50 who made an exception is B Sai Praneeth, who rose one place to 34th.
However, outside the top 50, there were a few notable ranking rises for Indians. Last week’s Bahrain International Challenge winner Pratul Joshi jumped 15 spots to reach 99th. That is the best career ranking for the 21-year-old for whom the Bahrain triumph was his maiden international title.
His brother, Aditya, whom he beat in the final, also climbed 12 places to reach his career-high ranking of 116th. The experienced Anand Pawar, who made it to the semi-finals of that same tournament, too rose seven places to reach 54th.
Doubles
In men’s doubles, the top Indian pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy stuck to their 25th spot with the India No. 2 team of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Akshay Dewalkar dropping a place to 32nd.
In women’s doubles, Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa were static at 26th while the mixed doubles duo of Chopra and N Sikki Reddy slid down one spot to 26th.
Siril Verma reclaims top spot in juniors
In junior rankings, India had a great day as 17-year-old Siril Verma climbed back to the top spot in boys’ singles. He is currently the only player in the top 10 across all five categories in the junior rankings. Verma had first become the No. 1 earlier in the year after clinching the silver medal at the World Junior Championships at the end of 2015.
