The latest BWF Rankings, released on Thursday, saw a big jump for the reigning Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap after his inspired show at the Korea Masters last week where he reached the semi-finals. It was his best performance at any tournament since coming back from a knee surgery that destroyed his hopes of making it to the Rio Olympics.
The 30-year-old, who had fallen out of the top 100 after that six-month hiatus, has now climbed 33 places to reach 62nd. The former World No. 6 upset two seeds at the Grand Prix Gold tournament in Jeju en route to the last-four where he lost to the top seed Son Wan Ho.
There was not much change for the other top Indian men’s singles shuttlers, all of whom had wrapped up their 2016 season. Kidambi Srikanth, Ajay Jayaram, HS Prannoy and Sourabh Verma remain static at 13th, 19th, 29th, and 43rd respectively. Sameer Verma and B Sai Praneeth were the only ones in the top 50 who suffered a minor slide. Verma is now placed at 33rd and Sai is 37th.
Nehwal and Sindhu maintain their rankings
In women’s singles, India’s shuttle queens Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu maintained their 9th and 10th spots respectively. Sindhu is the only one out of the two who is yet to finish her season and she is in action at the Dubai World Superseries Finals this week.
The fast-rising 20-year-old Rituparna Das, meanwhile, has risen nine places to reach a career-best 66th. In contrast, the India No. 3 Ruthvika Shivani Gadde has plummeted nine rungs to be 58th.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy continues to rise
There is no stopping 16-year-old Satwiksairaj Rankireddy. The youngster has had a hugely successful three-week period which is very well reflected in his rankings.
Rankireddy won the Bangladesh International men’s doubles title with Chirag Shetty which was his third such crown in as many weeks. The two have now jumped 24 spots to grab the 69th position – their best ever ranking.
Rankireddy also won the mixed doubles title at the same event alongside K Maneesha which was their second triumph in three weeks. And that has now helped the duo to make it to a career-high 55th place in that category.
As for the other Indian pairs, Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy keep on soaring. The two, who have been on the rise for the past few weeks, have climbed yet another rung to be 16th in mixed doubles.
In men’s doubles, Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy are now 21st while Chopra and Akshay Dewalkar have slipped to 36th.
The newly-formed women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy too went up 64 places to be 113th. A week after ending up as the runners-up at the Welsh International, they backed it up with a semi-final finish at the Irish Open in just their third tournament together.
