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On March 26, Tuesday, Indian men’s badminton doubles pair Satwik Sairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty entered the 10th consecutive week as the world no.1 pair in the Badminton World Federation Rankings. They moved past the Indian record of ace shuttler Saina Nehwal.
Notably, in the women’s singles, Nehwal became the first Indian shuttler to achieve the world no.1 ranking on August 20, 2015, and stood at the summit spot for nine weeks till October 21, 2015.
Speaking about men’s singles, Kidambi Srikanth emerged as the first Indian shuttler to grab the world no.1 position on April 12, 2017, after winning four Super Series titles in a year. However, he could keep the spot for only one week.
After bagging the historic Asian Games gold medal, the duo of Satwik and Chirag became the first Indian pair to achieve the world no.1 ranking on October 10, 2023. However, they lost their summit spot three weeks later to China’s Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang.
The Indian duo reclaimed their pole position on January 23, 2024, after their consecutive runners-up finishes at the Malaysia Open Super 1000 and India Open Super 750. They lost to Liang-Wang in the final of the Malaysia Open.
Satwik and Chirag achieved 102,303 points at no.1 spot
However, they performed exceptionally well in the subsequent India Open Super 750 grand finale and they retained their pole position in the rankings with 95861 points.
Their dominance continued in the French Open Super 750 when they reached their fourth consecutive final on the World Tour and third in 2024, the Indian pair defeated Chinese Taipei’s Lee-Yang to reclaim the silverware after securing the title for the first time in 2022.
Importantly, Satwik-Chirag became the first men’s doubles pair to achieve 102,303 points. Meanwhile, the second-ranked South Korean pair of Kang and Seo have 97,261. Interestingly, the Indian pair took part in 19 tournaments while the South Korean pair has been part of 23 tournaments so far.
Though the Indian pair couldn’t make it big in the All England Open Badminton Championships, making the second-round exit, their rankings didn’t impact.
