Saina occupies no. 3 position, Kashyap jumps three places

LONDON, ENGLAND – AUGUST 04: Saina Nehwal of India stands with her Bronze medal following the Women’s Singles Badminton Gold Medal match on Day 8 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at Wembley Arena on August 4, 2012 in London, England.

India’s badminton icon Saina Nehwal continues to occupy the number three spot in latest world badminton federation rankings. The Hyderabad girl is only behind two Chinese stalwarts – Wang Yihan and Li Xuerui.

PV Sindhu also jumped two spots to be placed at 23rd. Neha Pandit jumped one place to 94th while Tanvi Lad jumped two spots to be placed 98th. Arundhati Pantawane, who won the Bahrain Open recently, however, felt six spots to 115th.

Meanwhile, India’s top ranked singles player Parupalli Kashyap jumped three places to 20th following a creditable quarterfinal finish at the recent China Open, where he upset Vietnam’s Tien Minh Nguyen.

It may be mentioned here that Kashyap achieved a career-high ranking of 19 in April 2012.

Two other Indians climbed up in rankings. Anand Pawar rose five spots to 55, while B Sai Praneeth rose two spots to 63rd position.

However, a slew of Indians dropped in rankings in the men’s singles category. Ajay Jayaram fell five spots to 32nd while Sourabh Varma dropped two spots to 35. RMV Gurusaidutt plunged eight places to 52, while Arvind Bhat dropped twelve places to 86.

H.S. Pranoy fell three spots to 92nd, while both Anup Sridhar and K Srikanth dropped one place to 107 and 108 respectively.

Old warhorse Chetan Anand fell three spots to 132nd position.