Commonwealth Games mixed doubles champion Sreeja Akula has become the top-ranked Indian woman table tennis player on Tuesday.
Commonwealth Games mixed doubles champion Sreeja Akula on Tuesday became the top-ranked Indian woman table tennis player after rising to a career-high rank of 38 in the latest ITTF Chart. Subsequently, she also replaced India’s poster girl Manika Batra.
Sreeja Akula is going through a purple patch this year, having already won the WTT Feeder Corpus Christi and WTT Feeder Beirut II titles. Akula won the Feeder Corpus Christi in January while two months later in March she won the Feeder Beirut II. Furthermore, Sreeja had also beaten World No 2 Wang Yidi of China in straight games at the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships in February.
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Yashaswini Ghorpade and Archana Kamath held on to their 99th and 100th spot in the rankings. However, seasoned paddler Sharath Kamal continues to be the top-ranked male player, occupying the 37th spot in the rankings. On the other hand, both G Sathiyan and Manav Thakar have interchanged places to be 60th and 61st respectively.
National champion Harmeet Desai, who was the top-ranked Indian a couple of months ago falls yet again in the world rankings. The Indian paddler continues to drop in the international rankings as he drops to the 64th spot.
India has already qualified for the team events at the Paris Olympics. Two singles entries in men’s and women’s singles will be decided by the Table Tennis Federation of India by May 16 after considering the world rankings at the time.
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