Five Indian men's singles shuttlers ranked within top-20

Five of India's men's singles shuttlers have been ranked within the top-20 in the world badminton rankings, announced on Thursday.

Kidambi Srikanth, at No.8, leads the chart among the Indians in the men's singles category, while H.S. Prannoy is second-highest ranked at the 15th spot after jumping four position thanks to his quarter-final appearance at Japan Open.

B. Sai Praneeth (17th), Sameer Verma (19th) and Ajay Jayaram (20th) are the other three Indians in the top-20.

Meanwhile, Danish Viktor Axelsen, who won the World Championships title in August, dethroned South Korean Son Wan Ho to become the new World No. , reports Xinhua news agency.

Axelsen has also made history of becoming the first European to reach the top of the rankings since compatriot Peter Gade in 2006.

Axelsen, 23, climbed to the top with 76,200 points, thanks to his win over former World No. 1 Lee Chong Wei from Malaysia at the Japan Open Superseries final this week.

At the Glasgow World Championships, he put up a stunning show and beat five-time world champion Lin Dan. Before that, he also prevailed over Lin and won the Rio Olympics bronze medal.

In the women's singles, Indian's Olympic medallists P.V. Sindhu and Saina Newhwal remained at second and 12th spots respectively.

Tai Tzu Ying continued to be on top, while Rio Olympic gold medallist Carolina Marin, who won the Japan Open, climbed to fourth.

It was great news for the mixed doubles player of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N. Sikki Reddy, who moved up two spots to be 17th thanks to their semi-final appearance in Tokyo last week.

Sikki and Ashwini Ponnappa remained in the 23rd spot in the women's doubles rankings.

--IANS

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