The Badminton World Federation (BWF) has issued the latest rankings where the men’s singles players of India Sai Praneeth and Sameer Verma have surged to new heights.
While in the women’s singles, PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal did not see any change in their rankings as they are still seated at the sixth and the ninth position respectively.
China Open was a really disappointing campaign for Sindhu and Saina as both of them were eliminated from the first round of the tournament itself.
They had walked into the tournament as strong contenders, but let alone getting anywhere close to the title, they couldn’t clear the first hurdle.
The men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have been the major gainers in the latest rankings. The duo seems to have benefited from the China Open performance where they managed to reach the semi-finals. They were ranked 9th ahead of the start of the China Open.
The pair earned 9350 points from the tournament which lifted them past the seventh-ranked Danes, Kim Astrup-Anders Skaarup Rasmusse and the eighth-ranked Chinese Han Cheng Kai-Zhou Hao Dong.
Satwiksairaj and Chirag have been in fine form in the recent rounds. Before the China Open, they had also made it to the title round of the French Open.
Sai Praneeth was rewarded for his bronze medal performance at the World Championships in August as he rose a spot up to be ranked 9th in the men’s singles.
Praneeth has become the seventh Indian to enter the top 10 in the men’s singles world rankings. However, Kidambi Srikanth, who was once the top ranked singles men’s player in the world, dropped three places and he is placed 13th in the rankings now.
Sameer Verma too jumped a spot to get to the no. 16 position. The men’s singles rankings are still led by Kento Momota of Japan.
