"Manika and I are ready to take calculated risks": Archana Kamath after attaining career-high ranking

Indian women's doubles duo Archana Kamath and Manika Batra have reached a career-high ranking of 4 as per the latest ITTF list of world rankings. With this, they have attained the highest ever ranking by an Indian table tennis singles or doubles player/duo.

The duo have a total of 1501 points to their name and went up by 2 spots in the latest list. They sit 34 points below Luxembourg's Xia Nei/Sarah Nutte but are quite far from the World No. 1 spot, which is occupied by Wang Manyu/Sun Yingsha with 4289 points.

Manika and Archana have been extremely consistent in their performances this past year and their ranking is a testament to their hard work and dedication.

In a brief interview with The Bridge, Archana Kamath said that "It feels very nice to see the boost in our rank and we also feel that we can get better and better with time."

On her partnership with Manika Batra, she states "I enjoy playing alongside Manika Di and I'm very comfortable too especially since she has an all-round game and is ready to take calculated risks as well".

The perseverance of the two also boils down to how they aim in improving their individual game. "We want to get better quality of shots, especially during the start of the rally, which will definitely help our pairing a lot" is what Archana Kamath has identified as of now.

The duo had won the bronze medal in the WTT Star Contender Doha 2022 after they had lost to Chinese Taipei's Li Yu-Jhun / Cheng I-Ching in the semi-finals, 11-8, 11-6, 11-7.

This was preceded by a quarterfinal finish at the WTT Grand Smash Singapore. Back in January, the duo were ranked 6th and had moved 4 places above their 10th place rank awarded to them in 2021.

Currently, without any new WTT events on the horizon to reap medals from, Archana Kamath and co. are focussing on the upcoming National Championships that will take place in Shillong.