Srikanth Kidambi’s monumental feat of winning back-to-back Superseries titles at the Indonesia Open and the Australian Open has now hauled the Pullela Gopichand protégé back into the top 8. In the latest BWF Rankings released on Thursday, the Guntur-born shuttler is placed at 8th after climbing three spots since his win in Sydney last Sunday.
With this, the Indian has now made a massive jump of 14 places in the last two weeks and is now five places away from matching his career-best ranking of 3rd that he had attained back in 2015.
Srikanth gained a staggering 9200 points from his Australian Open triumph to add to his tally of 51603. His total points tally now after deducting the 2220 that he had earned from his 2016 Korea Open in the 52-week ranking system is 58583, that puts him within 6000 points of the seventh placed Lin Dan.
Among the other Indians, Sai Praneeth, who reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open, is now 15th while Ajay Jayaram is one place below at 16th.
HS Prannoy, who could not follow up his giant-killing Indonesia Open run, has slipped two spots below to 23rd.
Saina climbs up one spot
Among the women, PV Sindhu continues to be the Indian No. 1 at 5th. Saina Nehwal has climbed one place to 15th. The former World No. 1’s title defence came to an end in the quarter-finals at the Australian Open at the hands of the sixth seeded Sun Yu while Sindhu squandered a match point to lose to the World No. 1 Tai Tzu Ying in the same round.
Career-best ranking for Satwik and Chirag
In men’s doubles, the young team of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty climbed five spots after winning a round at the Australian Open. They have leapt five places to be at their career-best ranking of 36th and are now just four away from the India’s top pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy.
In women’s doubles, there are three Indian pairs within the top 40. Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy continue to lead and are now at 27th. The India No. 2 pair of Meghana Jakkampudi and Poorvisha S Ram is 35th. Sanjana Santosh and Arathi Sara Sunil are 37th.
In mixed doubles, Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy are 18th.
