ITTF World Rankings: Achanta Sharath Kamal, Gnanasekaran Sathiyan and Manika Batra achieve career-best rankings

The latest world rankings released by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) in the month of October brought delight to the top Indian trio of Achanta Sharath Kamal, Gnanasekaran Sathiyan and Manika Batra as all three of them achieved their respective career-best rankings.

Sharath Kamal continues to cement his position as the best player from the country as he jumped four spots to accomplish his highest ever ranking of 31. The 36-year-old’s previous best was 32, which had come his way in May of 2015.

The 25-year-old Sathiyan, who had once pipped the veteran Sharath Kamal to the India No. 1 position, too did well by climbing four rungs to 36. For the engineer-turned-paddler, his previous best was 40. Sathiyan shared the news on a social media account and expressed his desire to break into the top 20.

The ranking rise happened after the players accrued points from their Asian Games outing in the month of September. Both Sathiyan and Sharath Kamal made it to the Round of 16 in singles that awarded them 910 points, which was considered during their rankings calculation.

Harmeet Desai is the next best Indian among the men and he is placed at 103 following a jump of five spots. Soumyajit Ghosh is 139th and Anthony Amalraj is 147th.

In the women’s section, Manika Batra too got to her career-best position of 55 after rising a solitary rung. The 23-year-old too made it to the Round of 16 in Jakarta and accumulated 840 points from that performance.

Batra also made history along with Sharath Kamal when they won India’s first ever Asian Games mixed doubles table tennis medal -- a bronze.

Other than Batra, the highly experienced Mouma Das too had a ranking rise. She surged 13 places to 110 after her campaign at Jakarta ended in the Round of 32 by dint of which she bagged 665 points.

Besides them, Madhurika Patkar is 123rd and Ayhika Mukherjee is 166th to round off the top 200.