India’s top men’s doubles pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty jumped two spots to reach the historic World no 1 ranking in latest BWF World Rankings to achieve their best ever career high rank. They are also the first Indian duo to reach the rankings and the fourth individual players after Prakash Padukone, Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth to achieve this feat.
The Indian duo dethroned Indonesia’s Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Adrianto to become the top-ranked team in the world and have a total of 92,411 points which is 2000 points clear of the next best team. Chirag-Satwik are the only India pair after V Diju/ Jwala Gutta and Jwala Gutta/Ashwini Ponnappa to reach notable rankings in the BWF rankings.
Chirag-Satwik had also made history when they became the first Indian duo to win a gold medal at the Asian Games in badminton for India after beating Sol Gyu Choi and Won Ho Kim of South Korea in the finals of the Asian Games which helped them reach their current BWF world ranking.
“We did not sleep the whole night before the final. We had a late match and were so excited having made it to our first final that I kept tossing and turning around in bed till five in the morning,” said Chirag Shetty while talking about the night before the final.
“We did not get off to a good start but fought back. They put up a good night, created a lot of pressure on us but we managed to stay calm,” said Shetty after winning the final.
While Chirag and Satwik improved their rankings, others did not do so well as HS Prannoy slipped to the 8th position despite winning a bronze medal. Further Lakshya Sen dropped to the 14th position, while Srikanth moved up to 20th. PV Sindhu gained two spots in the rankings and is the new player at the 13th position. Aakarshi Kashyap is the next best Indian in the women’s singles at the 41st rank. In the women’s doubles category, the pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand rose to 16. Meanwhile, in the mixed doubles, Rohan Kapoor and Sikki Reddy reached 38th rank.
