There were various highs and lows for Indian shuttlers in the latest BWF World Rankings released on Thursday. India’s golden girl Saina Nehwal suffered a slide of three places to drop down to No. 6 after succumbing in the quarter-finals of the All England Championships last week.
The start of the 2016 season has not been kind to Nehwal who turned 26 on Thursday. She was forced to withdraw from the Syed Modi International and the South Asian Games as she was recuperating from an ongoing foot problem. The prestigious All England Open was her first BWF tournament of the year where the 2015 runner-up bowed out to her recent nemesis Tai Tzu Ying.
This week she is in action at the Swiss Grand Prix Gold and will look to get back her much-needed confidence.
PV Sindhu, who had lost in her opener at the Birmingham event, rose one spot to be placed at 11th.
Big jump for the talented Sameer Verma
In men’s singles, 21-year-old Sameer Verma made the biggest jump among Indians as he climbed six places to reach his career-best ranking of 36th.
The young shuttler might have departed from this week’s Swiss Open in the third round but not before creating the huge upset of fourth seed and World No. 11 Wang Zhengming in the second round. He has been steadily rising over the past few weeks with consistent performances that saw him win three International-level titles end of last year.
B Sai Praneeth, who stunned the second seed Lee Chong Wei in the first round of the All England Open, also improved three places to be ranked 34th.
Career-best ranking for Ajay Jayaram
The top two Indian stars – Kidambi Srikanth and Parupalli Kashyap stayed put at their 10th and 17th places respectively. Among the others, Ajay Jayaram soared one spot to reach his career-best ranking of 20th while HS Prannoy plunged three rungs to be 27th.
In men’s doubles, Manu Attri/B Sumeeth Reddy rose a place to be 19th while Pranaav Jerry Chopra/Akshay Dewalkar held on to their 34th spot.
Massive ranking boost for Kona/Francis
The fast-rising Tarun Kona and Alwin Francis, who have been on a title-winning spree over the last few weeks, have further improved their ranking to be 75th. They have made a massive jump of 18 places from their last week’s ranking of 93rd.
In women’s doubles, Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa sunk one rung to No. 15.
