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Indian shuttler HS Prannoy’s upward trajectory continues as he broke back into the top 15 in the latest BWF World rankings released on Thursday, August 10, 2017. The former World No. 12 rose a couple of places to be No. 15 which is just three spots away from his career-best ranking.
With this, Prannoy is now the India No. 2 after the World No. 8 Srikanth Kidambi, having overtaken Ajay Jayaram, who is 17th.
Bitter-sweet moment for Prannoy
The Kerala shuttler’s latest accomplishment comes after last week’s New Zealand Grand Prix Gold where he made it to the quarter-finals. It, however, is a bitter-sweet moment for the Pullela Gopichand protégé as all his success this season comes when he has already missed the bus for the World Championships, scheduled to begin from August 21.
On April 27 - the deadline for automatic qualification - Prannoy was the India No. 5 at 29th, with Jayaram, Srikanth, B Sai Praneeth and Sameer Verma all ahead of him. With India having three players inside the top 24, the first three got through by dint of their rankings.
Sameer got his entry later, following a couple of pull-outs, leaving Prannoy rueing his missed opportunity.
That is why, it is not a surprise that today’s ranking rise was slightly disappointing for the 25-year-old and he shared it through his tweet.
The other Indian star performer of the New Zealand Open - Sourabh Verma - too surged five rungs thanks to his quarter-final show in Auckland. Just like Prannoy, Verma too reached the quarter-finals and is now 32nd, two spots shy of his career-high 30th.
Sourabh’s younger brother, Sameer is 29th while Sai Praneeth is 19th. Parupalli Kashyap, who bowed out to Sourabh in the pre-quarter-finals, jumped one place to 46th.
In women’s singles, PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal continue to be fifth and 16th respectively. National champion Rituparna Das is 46th.
The men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy remains the India No. 1 at 32nd. The India No. 2 combine of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty dropped a place to 38th.
In women’s doubles, Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy lead the pack at 25th while Reddy and Pranaav Jerry Chopra hold on to their 20th spot in the mixed doubles section.
