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Star paddler G Sathiyan made significant progress in the ITTF rankings, which was released on Tuesday, March 26, after their impressive showing in the WTT Feeder Series.
Sathiyan, who has two Commonwealth Games gold medals to his name, jumped 43 places to 60 in the rankings. He won his first-ever Feeder title recently after winning the men’s singles event in Beirut, Lebanon. Sathiyan defeated his Indian opponent Manav Thakkar 3-1 (6-11, 11-7, 11-7, 11-4) in the final.
Sathiyan managed to crawl back into the top 100 after gaining 125 points following his title-winning campaign in Beirut. The 31-year-old, who has a career-best ranking of 24, fell out of the top 100 recently.
Sreeja Akula rewarded after pulling off her best in Beirut
Sreeja Akula also jumped to her career-best ranking of 40. Sreeja, who was ranked 47 in the world, won the women’s singles title in Beirut after beating Luxembourg’s Sarah D Nutte 6-11, 12-10, 11-5, 11-9 at the Al Kawthar Secondary School.
It also happened to be 25-year-old Sreeja’s second WTT singles title after her triumph at Feeder Corpus Christi. Earlier, the young paddler, who also won a gold medal in mixed doubles in the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, got the better of World No.36 Suh Hyo Won.
Apart from Sreeja and Sathiyan, Archana Kamath also had reasons to cheer for. Kamath moved to 99 in the rankings after gaining 13 places. Manika Batra, who donned the national jersey in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, held on to her ranking of 38 in women’s singles.
India have already booked their berth for the Paris Olympics to be held later this year from July 26 to August 11. The Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) will decide the squad for the men’s and women’s singles by May 16 taking into account the rankings now.
