Shuttler Sindhu breaks into top 20

New Delhi, Sep 20 (IANS): P.V. Sindhu broke into the top 20 of the Badminton World Federation (BWF) women’s singles rankings released Thursday.

Sindhu jumped four places for a career-best 20th after she reached the semi-finals of the China Masters Super Series last week beating London Olympics gold medallist Li Xuerui of China.

Olympic bronze medallist Saina Nehwal, who is on a break at the moment, retained her fourth position.

In men’s singles, Ajay Jayaram, who also reached the last four of the China Masters, jumped six places to reach 23rd with 39,162 points.

Saurabh Verma took a huge leap of eight places to 31st with 34,862.6 points.

RMV Gurusaidutt jumped nine places to 46 with 29020 points.

However, Olympic quarter-finalist P. Kashyap went down by a place to 20th but still remains the highest ranking Indian with 43,786.69 points.

In men’s doubles, Kerala pair of K.T. Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas dropped a place to 28th.

Thane’s Pranav Chopra-Akshay Dewalkar and Kerala’s Tarun Kona-Arun Vishnu both jumped two places to be ranked 40th and 44th respectively.

Jwala Gutta, who is taking a sabbatical from the tour currently, dropped two places in mixed doubles along with V. Diju, who got married Sep 16.

Jwala and her women’s doubles partner Ashwini Ponnappa retained 22nd position despite not playing for the last few weeks.