India's mixed double pair Satwik, Ashwini break into top 20 of BWF Rankings

New Delhi: After a terrific performance at the recent-concluded Asia leg of badminton, India’s mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa broke into the world’s top 20, in the latest BWF rankings announced on Tuesday.

Satwik and Ashwini jumped 16 places to reach a career-best ranking of world number 19.

The duo had outclassed Malaysian combination of Chan Peng Soon and Goh Liu Ying in the quarterfinals to become the first Indian mixed doubles pair to reach the semifinals of a world tour Super 1000 event at the Toyota Thailand Open.

In the men's doubles, Satwik and Chirag Shetty retained their world number 10 spot after reaching the semifinals at Toyota Thailand Open.

Meanwhile, world champion P V Sindhu remained static at world number 7, while Saina Nehwal improved a place to world number 19.

In the men’s singles, Kidambi Srikanth moved up one spot to 13th, while Sameer Verma jumped four places to 27th spot after reaching quarterfinal at Toyota Thailand Open.

B Sai Praneeth dropped a spot to 17th, while Parupalli Kashyap slipped two places to 26th spot.

M R Arjun and Dhruv Kapila, who started playing together in 2019, jumped 33 places to 64th in the men’s doubles.

Kento Momota and Tai Tzu Ying remain world No 1s in men’s and women’s singles respectively, while Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo, Yuki Fukushima/Sayaka Hirota, and Zheng Si Wei/Huang Ya Qiong still lead the way in the doubles categories.

The BWF World Rankings reopened following the HSBC BWF World Tour Finals which concluded on Sunday.

BWF froze the rankings lists on 31 March, 2020 in response to disruptions caused by COVID-19, saying that standings as on March 17 will be the basis for entry and seedings when it restarts the international calender.(UNI)