With most of the Indian shuttlers busy playing at the Premier Badminton League Season 4 last week, there haven’t been many changes in the latest world rankings released by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) on Thursday, January 17, 2019. However, HS Prannoy, Subhankar Dey, Parupalli Kashyap and Ajay Jayaram did have minor changes in their rankings.
Prannoy rose a solitary rung to No. 19 and is now seven spots below Sameer Verma who is still No. 12. Kidambi Srikanth continues to lead the men’s singles shuttlers from India and is at No. 8.
While Sai Praneeth maintains his 22nd ranking, the former Commonwealth Games gold medallist Kashyap has slid to No. 45.
Career-high ranking for Dey
2018 SaarLorLux Open champion Subhankar Dey was one of the few top players from India playing at last week’s Thailand Masters where he won a round before crashing out to seventh seed Brice Leverdez. The effort pushed him up to a new career-high ranking of No. 48 this week.
Former World No. 13 Ajay Jayaram slipped one place to No. 52 and is a couple of rungs above Sameer’s elder brother Sourabh Verma.
No change for Saina and Sindhu
There was no change in the rankings for the shuttle queens, PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal. The BWF World Tour Finals winner Sindhu is static at No. 3 spot and Saina is six places below at No. 9. The latter has begun her 2019 season at the Malaysia Masters this week while Sindhu will kickstart her season a week later at the Indonesia Masters.
16-year-old Vaishnavi Reddy Jakka climbed one spot to No. 61 this week. She lost her first round in Bangkok last week.
In men’s doubles, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty continue to enjoy being placed at a career-high ranking of 16. Reigning Indian national champions Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy are at No. 25.
Commonwealth Games bronze medallists Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy rose to No. 22 in women’s doubles. In mixed doubles, Ponnappa-Rankireddy and Reddy-Pranaav Jerry Chopra occupy the No. 22 and No. 23 positions respectively.
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