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Indian men's table tennis team achieve new highest ever World Ranking
The Indian Men’s Table Tennis team has created history by attaining their highest ever world ranking of eight in the latest rankings released by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) on December 3 2019.
The Indian team, which is led by the likes of Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Achanta Sharath Kamal, had climbed to ninth last month. But in the latest rankings, they have managed to climb further up thanks to Sathiyan's exploits at the recently concluded World Table Tennis Cup.
China, still, top the men’s team rankings with 296 points, followed by Japan and Germany with 294 and 292 points respectively. India climbed one spot with 280 points, increased by eight points from last month. France, who were at eighth in November, fell to 10th in the latest rankings.
It must be noted that Sathiyan had a promising campaign at the World Cup in Chengdu, China where he defeated the higher-ranked Simon Gauzy of France and Jonathan Groth. He thus managed to reach the knockout stages where he lost to former World No. 1 Timo Boll.
A couple of weeks back, Harmeet Desai also claimed ITTF Challenge Indonesia Open table tennis championship beating Anthony Amalraj in the finals.
While the Indian female paddlers have not managed to make any significant mark in the international circuit since their breakthrough performances at the Commonwealth Games, the male paddlers have only gone from strength to strength. After they returned with a historic gold from Gold Coast, Sathiyan and co. finished 13th in the Championship Division of the World Table Tennis Team Championships in Halmstad, yet another historical feat.
The dream run continued in the Asian Games as well, where the Men in Blue claimed the bronze medal. Coming second in Group D after Chinese Taipei, the Indians defeated Japan 3-1 in the quarters before going down 0-3 to South Korea in the semis. They ended the year at 13th position.
Then at the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championship in July at Cuttack, India clinched the gold medal after beating England 3-2 in the finals. The men’s team, after that, recorded their second-best result in the Asian Table Tennis Championships as they finished fifth.
