New Delhi: Indian badminton star Lakshya Sen’s silver medal-winning feat at the All England Badminton Championships helped him break into the top 10 of the latest BWF World Rankings Tuesday. The 20-year-old from Uttarakhand became only the fifth Indian ever to reach the summit clash of All England Championships. Lakshya Sen, improved two places to become World No. 9 with 74,786 points, surpassing reigning World Champion Loh Kean Yew of Singapore.
Lakshya had suffered a heartbreaking straight-game loss Sunday to Olympic champion and World No. 1 Viktor Axelsen of Denmark.
The former world junior No.1 Indian thus became the India’s highest ranked men’s singles player. Lakshya surpassed Kidambi Srikanth, who slipped to the 12th spot this week.
Lakshya has withdrawn from the ongoing Swiss Open due to exhaustion. He made it to the final of the German Open and All England in the last two weeks.
Women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand also jumped 12 places to reach a career-best World No. 34, riding on their maiden semifinal finish at the All England Championship.
Also read: Lakshya Sen withdraws from Swiss Open to rest his weary body
The duo, who was promoted to the main draw from the reserve list at Birmingham, had stunned second seeded Koreans Lee Sohee and Shin Seungchan in the quarterfinals.
Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy remained India’s best ranked women’s doubles pair at World No. 20, despite losing a place.
Double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu remained at World No. 7. Saina Nehwal climbed two places to 23rd, following a second round defeat at All England.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, who had claimed the men’s doubles title at India Open in January, jumped a place to the seventh spot.