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What's the story?
As per the latest Men's Singles BWF Rankings, rising sensation Lakshya Sen occupies Rank 28 while India's top-ranked male shuttler Sai Praneeth achieved Rank 10. It is their respective career-best ranking.
The background
27-year-old Sai Praneeth has been exceptional in the past couple of years. The Andhra Pradesh-born shuttler won an impressive bronze medal at the World Championships last year. Praneeth also finished runner-up at the 2019 Swiss Open (Super 300) tournament. These two medals helped him swiftly rise in the ranks last year.
Meanwhile, 18-year-old Lakshya Sen is best known for winning the Youth Olympic Games Boys' Singles Silver medal in 2018. The teenager soon became a prominent part of the senior Indian team. He exuded class during the recently concluded Premier Badminton League as well.
2019 was a fantastic year for Sen as he clinched the titles at the Bangladesh International, Scottish Open, and Belgian International. Apart from these three International Series wins, Lakshya also won the SaarLorLux Open and Dutch Open (both Super 100) BWF World Tour tournaments last year. As a result, the Indian prodigy has also witnessed a steep increase in his World Rankings.
The heart of the matter
Sai Praneeth was ranked 11th in last week's rankings. As per the latest rankings, the ace Indian shuttler jumped one spot to occupy the 10th Rank, which had been occupied by Kanta Tsuneyama last week. The Japanese shuttler is now placed at Rank 11.
Meanwhile, Lakshya Sen jumped three places to occupy his career-best Rank 28 as per the latest BWF Rankings.
Sen was highly impressive and helped India claim the Bronze medal at the recent 2020 Badminton Asia Team Championships. In the group stage, Sen defeated Artur Niyazov of Kazakhstan 21-13 21-8. The youngster put up a stellar display against Suppanyu Avihingsanon of Thailand in the quarterfinal by defeating him 21-19, 21-18 in straight sets.
The highlight for him was a win against Asian Games Champion Jonatan Christie in the semifinal. Sen defeated the World Number 7 Indonesian 21-18 22-20. India lost 2-3 to the eventual champions Indonesia but Lakshya impressed by winning all three of his Singles matches played in the tournament.
Coming back to the Rankings, among the other Indian shuttlers, Kidambi Srikanth also jumped three places and is Ranked 12th, Parupalli Kashyap remained at Rank 25, and HS Prannoy remained at Rank 27. Sourabh Verma and Sameer Verma dropped one place each and are now ranked 29th and 30th, respectively.
Young Subhankar Dey moved up two places and is now Ranked 45th.
What's next?
Achieving their career-best rankings will certainly come as a morale boost for both Sai Praneeth and Lakshya Sen.
