India's Manav Thakkar becomes World No. 1 in U-21 category

Young Indian table tennis sensation Manav Thakkar climbed to the top of the U-21 world rankings, which were released this week. Bastien Rembert of China was ranked second while Roumania's Cristian Pletea is third on the rankings.

The Surat-born Thakkar was No 3 in November but had dropped to 10th in December's rankings. However, he saw a massive rise in points and climbed to the top, beginning the new year on 6,780 points, according to the International Table Tennis Federation rankings.

Back in 2018, Thakkar had become the first Indian table tennis player to make it to the top of the U-18 world rankings. Since then his rise has been meteoric. Within a few months, he earned a call up to the Asian Games squad that won bronze in the men’s team event.

Also read: Manav Thakkar bags U-21 Men’s Singles ITTF Challenge title

A month later, at the Asian Championships, he picked up his first win against a top 50 paddler when he defeated then world no 34 Kazuhiro Yoshimura of Japan. In October, he competed at the Youth Olympics where he lost in the round of 16 to world no 5 Tomokazu Harimoto.

Earlier this month, the 19-year-old became the first Indian since 2017 to win an U-21 men’s singles title when he lifted the crown at the ITTF Challenge Plus Benemax-Virgo North American Open in Markham, Canada. Thakkar beat Argentina’s Martin Bentancor 11-3, 11-5, 11-6 in the final.

The only other Indians who have won ITTF World Tour U-21 men’s singles titles are Harmeet Desai, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Soumyajit Ghosh.

Among the women, Archana Girish Kamath also climbed to World No. 2 in the U-21 World Rankings.