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India’s top junior, Lakshya Sen climbed a whopping seven spots to be placed at the second position in the latest World Junior Rankings released by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) on Thursday, July 26, 2018. This comes as a result of his stunning performance at the individual event of the Badminton Asia Junior Championships 2018, where he defeated the top seed and junior World No. 1 Kunlavut Vitidsarn 21-19, 21-18 in a riveting final.
It was the first ever meeting between the Indian and the Thai, but the former refused to be intimidated by his higher-ranked rival. The soon-to-turn 17-year-old Sen had dropped only one game in four matches on his way to the final, and that fully validated how much confident he felt throughout his campaign.
He showed all that confidence in the summit clash, as he won the biggest title of his junior career. It was his second medal from this prestigious junior tournament, adding to the bronze he won in 2016. It also enabled him to join PV Sindhu and Gautam Thakkar as the third Indian to win a gold at the Asian Junior Championships.
Lakshya is now just one place shy of equalling his career-best ranking of World No. 1, that he achieved last year in August.
Apart from him, Kartikey Gulshan Kumar is the only other Indian in the top 25 of the men’s singles rankings and he slipped one spot to seventh this week.
Kiran George’s impressive outing at the Asian Junior Championships also reflected in his rankings as he soared 16 places to 40th. He made it to the Round of 16 in men’s singles.
In women’s singles, Vaishnavi Reddy Jakka fell two places to sixth while Purva Barve remained unchanged at eighth. Aakarshi Kashyap suffered a shock second round defeat at the continental championships, because of which she dropped to 12th.
Big jump for Manipuri pair
In men’s doubles, Krishna Prasad Garaga and Dhruv Kapila plummeted five places each to 10th. The biggest Indian movers in that category were Manjit Singh Khwairakpam and Dingku Singh Konthoujam. The pair, hailing from Manipur, made it to the quarter-finals, riding on a giant-killing run.
That propelled them up to 86th after a rise of a staggering 51 places.
