Rising Indian badminton star Siril Verma made a massive jump of 13 places to the 67th spot in the latest BWF Rankings released on Thursday. The rise comes after he won two rounds and reached the pre-quarter-finals at last week’s Chinese Taipei Grand Prix Gold.
Siril Verma, all of 17 years, has been one of the emerging stars to look out for in Indian badminton for quite some time. The former junior World Championships silver medallist has made a seamless transition to the senior level and has been making rapid strides.
In October, he made it to the final of the Russian Grand Prix, losing to the top seed Zulfadli Zulkiffli in three games. At this year’s Australian Open Superseries in June, he showed his improvement by qualifying for the main draw.
Apart from him, there has not been much movement in the rankings for other Indian men’s singles exponents.
Srikanth Kidambi, Ajay Jayaram, HS Prannoy, Sameeer Verma and Sourabh Verma all stay put at 8th, 16th, 23rd, 33rd and 35th respectively. Only Singapore Open champion B Sai Praneeth dropped three rungs to 18th.
Saina and Sindhu stay put
In women’s singles, India’s top two superstars - Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu - remain unchanged at 5th and 15th spots respectively. Rituparna Das is at 48th while Tanvi Lad is 68th and Sri Krishna Priya Kudaravalli is 74th.
The Russian Open champion Ruthvika Shivani Gadde, who has returned to competition after a hiatus, slid 16 places to 80th.
Four Indian men’s doubles pairs inside top 50
In men’s doubles, four Indian pairs find themselves in the top 50. Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy still continue to lead at 34th but the young pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty is now breathing down their necks at 35th.
Arjun MR and Shlok Ramchandran are placed at 46th while Tarun Kona and Francis Alwin are placed 50th.
In women’s doubles, no Indian team features in the top 25. Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy are the highest ranked team at 26th.
Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Sikki Reddy are the only Indian duo inside the top 20 of mixed doubles rankings at 18th.
The biggest names in the sport were all on a break last week after the hectic couple of weeks that saw them compete at the Indonesia Open and Australian Open Superseries events back-to-back.
