Sharath Kamal enters world's top 40 in ranking with a jump of 54 places
After a miraculous run at Singapore Smash, Sharath Kamal jumped up 54 places in the rankings becoming world number 34.
Achanta Sharath Kamal is currently India's highest-ranked men's singles player at the world raking of 35.
Ace Indian paddler, Achanta Sharath Kamal took a massive jump of 54 places in the world rankings to rank 34 in the world after his quarterfinal run at Singapore Smash last week.
Sharath is entering the top 40 rankings after 2 years of absence, which is a very good sign before the Paris Olympics. He has now also become India's No. 1 in men's singles.
He achieved this feat after an excellent week in Singapore where he won six back-to-back matches upsetting a few higher-ranked players en route to grab 400 ranking points. Earlier, he helped the Indian men's team acquire the first-ever team quota for the Olympics.
He also made a huge gap between him and the next best Indian player, Harmeet Desai, who dropped one place in the rankings to the world rank 65. Manav Thakkar (74) and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (103) are the other two paddlers in the chasing pack.
In women's singles, Sreeja Akula jumped up three positions to reach her career-best ranking of 47 and closed the gap between her and top-placed Indian, Manika Batra ranked 38. Meanwhile, Sutirtha Mukherjee returning to singles also had a humongous jump of 54 places to rank 116 in the world.
However, a big setback for the mixed doubles pairing of Manika Batra and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran who dropped down 13 places to world no.25 after their continuous poor form on world tour.
Indian table tennis players have already secured quota in four of the events of the Paris Olympics, only the mixed doubles discipline is left but this massive fall in the rankings will make their chances even tougher.