Rio Olympics-bound Soumyajit Ghosh upstaged his icon Achanta Sharath Kamal to become the best placed Indian in the latest world Table Tennis rankings issued today.
As per the latest International Table Tennis Federation world rankings, Ghosh find himself at the 65 spot, eight places ahead of Sharath.
Sharath, who had occupied 61st position only last month, has dropped down to world no. 73.
Ghosh's surge in world ranking came on the back of his sterling performances at the Asian Cup in Dubai last week.
Ghosh had beaten a higher ranked Korean player apart from accounting for a Chinese Taipei paddler, paving the way for the surge.
Ghosh had finished seventh in the Inter Continental Cup Group of the Asian Cup event at Dubai last week. After qualifying for the main draw, he defeated Chinese Taipei's Chiang Hung-Chieh 4-3 (10-12 11-9 6-11 11-6 11-8 9-11 11-4) in a tough battle for the first time in his career.
But even before that, Ghosh had another first to his credit when he defeated Korean Youngsik Jung in the semifinals of the me''s singles challenge 3-2 (11-6 7-11 11-8 10-12 11-8) to enter the main draw.
Ghosh had lost badly to the Korean twice before both at Australia Open Challenge and Korea Open.
Sharath, who too participated in the Dubai event, lost all three of his qualifying matches and that had cost him dear.
Among women paddlers, National champion Manika Batra too gained six places to be at 128th spot after putting up a fine display at the Asian Cup's Continental group event.
Mouma Das, another Rio-bound paddler, however lost eight places to be at 158th position since her outing in the World Championships in Malaysia.
