New Delhi: The Commonwealth Games doubles champion Sreeja Akula on Tuesday surpassed Manika Batra to become the top-ranked Indian woman table tennis player after rising to a career-high rank of 38 in the latest ITTF rankings chart.
Sreeja moved up a notch while Manika, who had been India’s top TT player for some time, dropped two spots to 39. Yashaswini Ghorpade and Archana Kamath remained at positions 99 and 100, respectively.
In the men’s category at No.37 in the standings, Achanta Sharath Kamal remains the highest-ranked male player, while G. Sathiyan and Manav Thakar have switched places to be rated 60th and 61st, respectively.
The 25-year-old Sreeja has had a successful year, finishing in the quarterfinals of the WTT Star Contender in Goa and taking home the crowns from the WTT Feeder Corpus Christi and WTT Feeder Beirut in January and March, respectively.
In the team events, India have already qualified for the Olympic Games in Paris. The Table Tennis Federation of India will determine two entries per person, one for each gender, by May 16, taking into account the current world rankings.
–IANS