Sportskeeda's Indian Sportsperson of the Year 2016 – No. 25 to No. 16

#20 Ajay Jayaram

Ajay Jayaram performed superbly in Superseries tournaments

This year has truly belonged to the shuttlers of India and Ajay Jayaram has been one of the exponents in the sport. Although he missed out on an Olympic berth, his performances in several Superseries tournaments and other events were commendable, to say the least.

Jayaram had a stellar year and is certainly on the brink of something huge. His best performance this year was the appearance in the final of the Dutch Open in October. However, he lost out to Tzu Wei Wang of Chinese Taipei after giving a good fight.

He made numerous semi-final appearances throughout the year but failed to turn up when it mattered the most. In the Canada Open, Jayaram reached the semis before being ousted by Lee Dyon II. He also bowed out of the semi-finals of the US Open Grand Prix Gold after losing to Kanta Tsuneyama of Japan.

He made it to the quarter-finals of the China Open Superseries but lost out to Olympic champion Chen Long. The story remained unchanged at the Hong Kong Open Superseries where the shuttler lost in the semis yet again. Nevertheless, he finished the year with a career-best ranking of 19 and finds his name on 20^th on our list.