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In the latest rankings released on Thursday by the Badminton World Federation (BWF), the top Indian shuttlers all retained their positions from last week. However, some of the youngsters, like Pratul Joshi, Sahil Sipani, Neeraj Vashist and others, took giant strides forward.
With the BWF World Championships set to begin on 21st August 2017, there were very few competitive tournaments this week. Thereby, the rankings of the major players like Kidambi Srikanth, HS Prannoy, PV Sindhu and others did not see any changes.
Srikanth held on to his 8th rank which he achieved last month following his back-to-back Superseries title wins. Prannoy (15), Ajay Jayaram (17) and B Sai Praneeth (19) also maintained their ranks from last week.
Prannoy, who had broken back into the top 15 last week after his quarter-final appearance at the New Zealand Grand Prix Gold, will, however, miss the upcoming BWF World Championships. Meanwhile, Srikanth, Jayaram, Sai Praneeth and the 29th-ranked Sameer Verma are all set to represent India at the tournament.
In women’s singles, PV Sindhu (5) and Saina Nehwal (16) both retained their ranks. Both of them have got byes in the first round of next week’s World Championships. Rituparna Das (46) and Tanvi Lad (93), the others who qualified for the tournament, have tough matches in their first rounds.
Among the big movers were Pratul Joshi and Sahil Sipani
The Indians participating at the New Zealand International Series tournament last week all climbed up in the rankings. Pratul Joshi, who made it to the quarter-finals before losing out to Lin Chun-Yi of Taipei 19-21, 15-21, climbed up eleven spots to 88th in the rankings.
Sahil Sipani, on the other hand, lost to Taipei player Shiau Cheng Chen 21-16, 4-21, 21-12. However, he jumped 28 places to 211. Sachin Rawat, who crashed out in the first round, also jumped 168 places to 455.
Neeraj Vashist, as well, climbed up 16 places to 270.
The World Championships kick off next week
Following the recent success of the Indian shuttlers under the guidance of Pullela Gopichand, there has been a massive growth of the sport in the country.
Many of the followers of the sport in India are already pinning their hopes on the likes of Srikanth, Sai Praneeth, Saina Nehwal and Sindhu to win a few medals for the country.
