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In the latest world rankings released by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) this week, Indian shuttle queen PV Sindhu slipped a couple of spots to No. 6. This is the first time since mid-December of last year that the Rio Olympic silver medallist is ranked outside the top 5.
Her triumph at the BWF World Tour Finals -- her biggest career title till date had made her jump three places to No. 3 on December 20, where she remained until sliding to No. 4 and finally out of the top 5 this week.
Sameer and Sai slide
With points from last year’s India Open being erased this week, Sindhu is not the only top Indian shuttler to drop in the rankings.
Sameer Verma dropped a solitary rung to 13th. Sameer had achieved a career-high ranking of 11 last month. Former Singapore Open Super Series winner Sai Praneeth too plummeted five places to 26th.
There was no change in ranking for the newly-crowned Indonesia Masters champion Saina Nehwal, who stays at No. 9. Among the men, Kidambi Srikanth and HS Prannoy maintain their seventh and 19th positions respectively.
Subhankar Dey is now 48th, Parupalli Kashyap is 50th, Sourabh Verma is 55th, and Ajay Jayaram is 59th.
Former women’s singles India national champion Rituparna Das dropped three places to No. 58 while Vaishnavi Reddy Jakka is static at No. 61.
In men’s doubles, there was no change for the top two Indian pairs. Commonwealth Games silver medallists Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty are 21st and are followed by the reigning Indian national champions Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy six places below.
The women’s doubles duo of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy fell three places to 24th in the latest rankings. In mixed doubles too, the Indian teams suffered a ranking slide. Ponnappa and Rankireddy, who reached the 2018 World Championships quarter-finals, are now 26th while Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Reddy have plunged a whopping eight spots to 33rd.
