Manav Thakkar-Manush Shah attain career-best world ranking in doubles

Indian men's doubles table tennis pairing of Manav Thakkar and Manush Shah attained their career-best world ranking as they soared to 12 in the latest ITTF Rankings on Tuesday.

Their latest jump in men's doubles came after a spectacular run by Manav and Manush in the WTT Feeder tournaments this year.

Last week, Manav and Manush finished runner-up in the WTT Feeder Otocec tournament after losing to Korea's Kim Minhyeok and Park Ganghyeon in the final.

In a nail-biting contest, the top-seeded Indian duo conceded their opening game lead to lose the contest 12-10, 8-11, 11-7, 12-14, 8-11.

This was their second runner-up finish in three consecutive finals. Last month in Lebanon, Manav and Manush reached the final of the WTT Feeder Beirut event before making it to the summit clash of the WTT Feeder Beirut II. 

While they settled for a silver medal in the first event in Beirut, Manav and Manush secured the gold medal in the WTT Feeder Beirut II event.

In men's singles, Manav jumped two places to become India's number two at the world rank of 61. He is closely followed by Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Harmeet Desai ranked 62nd and 64th respectively.

Sharath Kamal remained India's number-one paddler in men's singles at 37.

Manika Batra and Sreeja maintained their rankings in the top 40 of women's singles with Manika ranked world number 38 and Sreeja ranked 40.

In women's doubles, Ayhika and Sutirtha Mukherjee are ranked 14th, while in mixed doubles, Manika and Sathiyan slipped to 18 due to their recent poor run. The duo will be in action from 11th April in World Mixed Doubles Olympic qualifiers to book a berth for the upcoming Paris Olympics.