Saina Nehwal scales to historic World No 1 ranking

She is the first Indian woman shuttler to attain the world number one ranking

Saina Nehwal on Saturday scripted history by becoming the first Indian woman shuttler to attain the number one spot in world rankings, reaffirming her status as the country’s most consistent performer in the international circuit.

The 25-year-old zoomed to the top after her closest challenger for the position, Spain’s Carolina Marin, lost in the India Open Super Series semifinal here.

Though the official rankings will be out only on Thursday, Saina has been assured of her ascent to the top owing to the reigning world champion’s 19-21 23-21 20-22 loss to third seed Thai Ratchanok Intanon.

Saina, thus, becomes only the second Indian overall to be world number one after Prakash Padukone had the distinction of being the numero uno men’s badminton player.

The London Olympic bronze-medallist has won a staggering 14 international titles in her glorious career and most recently she became the first Indian woman to make the finals of the prestigious All England Championships in Manchester “Number one is not at the back of mind right now. The only thing I am focussing on is playing all the tournaments and I want to win them,” Saina had said when asked about the ranking.

“I want to perform well and beat the players against whom I was losing. I don’t want to lose the way I was losing in the last three years. I want to be more consistent. When you are playing well, other things fall in place”, she said.

If Saina loses in semifinals, she will finish with 75761 points after pocketing 6420 for reaching the last four.

Carolina, on the other hand, will gain 6420 points for her semifinal finish here which will take her total points to tally to 73618. The injury-ravaged Saina, who admitted that it is “tough to maintain rankings”, said she remains intent on achieving consistency. “It is tough to be in top-five for the last seven years.