BWF Rankings: Sai Praneeth rises four places; Sameer Verma drops to 14th

Former Singapore Open champion Sai Praneeth climbed four spots to 24th as the latest world rankings were released by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) this week. Sai had slipped outside the top 25 after January when the quarter-final points that he had earned at the 2018 India Open came off earlier this month.

BWF World Tour Finals semi-finalist Sameer Verma, meanwhile, slid one spot to 14th but the India No. 1 men’s singles shuttler Kidambi Srikanth held on to his World No. 8 position and so did HS Prannoy who remains at 19th.

Subhankar Dey is now 47th, Parupalli Kashyap is 51st, Sourabh Verma is 56th, followed by Ajay Jayaram at 60th. Rising star Mithun Manjunath jumped six places to 88th.

No change for Saina and Sindhu

There was no change in the world rankings for the top two Indian shuttle queens, PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal. While Sindhu maintains her sixth spot, the Indonesia Masters winner Nehwal continues to trail Sindhu by three places.

Former national champion Rituparna Das rose a solitary rung to 56th and Mugdha Agrey made a huge leap of nine ranking spots to 73rd. Vaishnavi Reddy Jakka, meanwhile, remains at 62nd.

In men’s doubles, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty climbed one spot to 20th while Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy stayed put at 26th. Arjun MR and Shlok Ramchandran dropped three places to 44th.

Commonwealth Games women’s doubles bronze medallists Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy slid one spot to 25th in the latest world rankings. In mixed doubles, World Championships quarter-finalists Ponnappa and Rankireddy surged one place to 24th. Pranaav Jerry Chopra and the newly-married Sikki Reddy ascended a couple of rungs to be placed at 30th in this week’s rankings.

The top Indian shuttlers will next be seen in action at the All England Open, starting from March 6.