Indian badminton player P.Kashyap has reentered the top 10 rankings in men’s singles, jumping two places, according to the latest BWF release. This jump in rankings is attributed to the hard fought match he won against World no. 1 Chen Long . Kashyap had stunned China’s world champion , 14-21, 21-17, 21-14 to reach the semi-finals in the Indonesia Open Super Series Premier Badminton tournament at Jakarta.
Parupalli Kashyap became the first Indian in 14 years to claim victory over a reigning World No. 1 in men’s singles badminton. Pullela Gopichand was the last Indian to trump over a No. 1 when he scalped Peter Gade on way to his All England triumph in 2001.
Meanwhile, China’s Chen Long and Denmark’s Jan O Jorgensen remain at the no. 1 and no. 2 spot respectively.
Kidambi Srikanth remains at his career best ranking of no. 3 in men’s singles. Critics have attributed the stability in his rankings to the poor form of former world champion Lin Dan. The Chinese, who was stunned by Tommy Sugiarto in the opening round of BCA Indonesian Open badminton championship, remained at no. 4, failing to make a ground in the rankings.This was the two time Olympic Gold Medalists’ second consecutive first-round exit for the first time since his teen years.
H.S. Prannoy retained his No.13 position while PV Sindhu remained at 14th owing to her loss to Hsu Ya Ching of Chinese Taipei in the first round of Indonesia Open.
Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa surged ahead to reach the 15th spot in the women’s doubles category after improving two places. Sadly, no Indian men’s or mixed doubles pairs were inside the top-25 ranking. Former chief national badminton coach Vimal Kumar has said earlier this year that doubles is neglected in India and the need of the hour is to hire a top foreign player to coach doubles.
“In the last few years…We have seen women’s and men’s badminton come up and if you look at last few rounds we had some good performances from Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa. But if you look at Sumeeth Reddy and Manu Atri, they have done well to beat world top ten players in Asian Games and then in the world championship. We also had some good performance from our mixed doubles”, said Pullela Gopichand. The current national coach has also admitted that doubles needs more help but claimed not to have the freedom to do so. “In our country, the coach doesn’t have the freedom like foreign coaches, in terms of forming different combinations.”
Indian ace Saina Nehwal ,who was displaced on Thursday from the top spot in badminton world rankings, slipping to third has now jumped ahead to second spot in the world rankings, placed below Spaniard Carolina Marin as Chinese Li Xuerui slipped from no. 1 position to no. 3 .
