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There are enough reasons to rejoice for Indian badminton. The country’s top-ranked men’s singles player Parupalli Kashyap soared to a career high number seven ranking, climbing two spots from last week’s number seven ranking.
Kashyap was the lone Indian men’s singles player to make an impression at the recently concluded All-England Badminton Championships.
The nimble-footed Indian shuttler reached the quarterfinals where he was shown the tournament exit door by second seed Long Chen of China, going down 16-21,10-21.
Kashyap earlier sprang a big surprise when he ousted Japan’s Kenichi Tago 22-20, 21-15 in the pre-quarterfinals.
Meanwhile, Saina Nehwal took the number two spot behind China’s Li Xuerui overtaking former world number one Wang Yihan, who was occupying the second position last week.
At the All-England Badminton Championships, Saina did exceedingly well, reaching the semifinals where she lost to Thailand’s eight seed Intanon Ratchanok 21-23, 21-19, 16-21.
The Indian badminton icon made short work of China’s sixth seed Shixian Wang 21-11, 21-13 in the quarterfinals.
Among the other Indian women, PV Sindhu managed to cling on to her last week’s world number sixteen ranking.
Sindhu had entered the second round of the All-England Badminton Championships where she lost to fourth seed Juliane Schenk of Germany 17-21, 14-21.
Arundhati Pantawane advanced one spot to be placed 104th while Tanvi Lad and PC Thulasi retained their last week’s ranking of 111 and 125 respectively.
Among the Indian men, Ajay Jayaram continues to hold his 31st ranking. Jayaram lost a tough opening round match to China’s Zhengming Wang in a three-game affair.
The Indian won the opening game at 21-15 before losing the next two games at 18-21, 15-21.
RMV Gurusaidutt jumped two spots to be placed 36th.
Sourabh Varma also made an upward move, climbing four slots to be ranked 39th.
Sourabh entered the second round where he lost to eight seed Tien Minh Nguyen of Vietnam.
Anand Pawar moved up one spot to be ranked 44, while B Sai Praneeth managed to cling on to his last week’s world number 55 ranking. K Srikanth also notched up two spots to be placed 64th.
Arvind Bhat fell eight places to be ranked 94th while HS Pranoy moved up one spot to be ranked 96.
Old warhorse Chetan Anand continues to hold his last week’s ranking of 99 and the same was the case with Anup Sridhar, who is perched at 108.
