Harmeet breaks into double-digit world ranking

New Delhi, May 3: Harmeet Desai joined the select band of Indians to break the barrier of three-digit world ranking mark to be at No. 95. A. Sharath Kamal and Soumyajit Ghosh are the other two men paddlers who had their places sealed long back with their consistent performances. Incidentally, this is the first time ever that three Indians figure in under-100 world ranking.

With his sterling presentation at the Wuxi Asian Championships, both in team events as well as in singles, Harmeet moved five places ahead after being at No. 100 on the men’s ranking list.

Sharath, who is still the top-ranked Indian at No. 54, has lost a place—he was No. 53—while Ghosh, despite his title winning performance at the Chile Open on Sunday, has made a small jump ahead, moving to No. 83 from No. 84.

But the worst sufferer is Manika Batra who, from world No. 93, has been pushed to No. 103. The other women paddlers have done nothing worthwhile to move up the ladder.

In Youth Boys, Arjun Ghosh has moved several places to break the 100-mark barrier as he is ranked No. 98 in the world. Manav Thakkar, Abhishek Yadav, Ronit Bhanja, Anirban Ghosh, Siddesh Pande, Jeet Chandra, Birdie Boro and Manush Shah have gained in world rankings but none matching the performance of Arjun Ghosh.

In Youth Girls, Ayhika Mukherjee has improved upon her world rankings by going up two places from No. 37 to No. 35, along with Moumita Datta (No. 147), Seleena Depthi (No. 177) and Diya Chitale (No. 209). Surprisingly, Archana Kamath has lost a few places from No. 56 to be No. 59.

In Junior Boys, Manav Thakkar has made big amends to figure at No. 29 while Manush Shah at 115,  identical gain of 10 places for both players.

In Junior Girls, Archana is now among the top 20 in the world, a good two-spot jump, following India’s performance at the Belgium Open in Spa last month. Along with her, Moumita Datta who helped the team win gold, has gained 18 places and is currently at No. 79. Others who have gained from the Spa championships were Selena Deepthi (No. 93) and Diya Chitale (No. 116). The girl from Maharashtra was languishing at No. 147 until the May list was published.

For the first time, both H. Jeho and Payas Jain in under-15 boys’ section and Anusha Kutamble and Vanshika Bhargava in under-15 girls category have entered the world ranking list while Diya, who was the lone Indian at No. 26, has gained three spots to be at No. 23.

TTFI release