India’s ace badminton player PV Sindhu dropped three more places to world No. 15 in the latest women’s singles standings in the BWF rankings released on Tuesday.
A two-time Olympic medallist and former world No. 2, PV Sindhu’s ranking has seen a significant dip since the beginning of the year. She started the 2023 season as the world No. 7 but dropped out of the top 10 this April.
The last time PV Sindhu was outside the top 14 in the women’s singles badminton rankings was way back in April 2013. The former world champion reached her career-best ranking of world No. 2 in April 2017.
The 27-year-old PV Sindhu has struggled for form this season since making a comeback after a long injury lay-off following her gold medal win at the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham.
PV Sindhu returned to action at the Malaysian Open and Indian Open this year and suffered first-round exits from both tournaments.
The Hyderabad shuttler was part of India’s bronze medal win at the Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championship 2023 at Doha in February but overall, has been in poor form on the BWF World Tour.
Barring a final appearance at the Madrid Masters and a top four finish at the Malaysia Masters, PV Sindhu has failed to progress beyond the second round in any of the other seven BWF World Tour tournaments she has played so far this year. Of these, five were first round exits.
Sindhu’s fellow Olympic medal-winner Saina Nehwal remained rooted to the 30th position in the women’s singles, followed by Aakarshi Kashyap (42), Ashmita Chaliha (44) and Malvika Bansod (46).
In men’s singles, HS Prannoy, who won his maiden BWF World Tour title at the Malaysia Masters in May, is still India’s top-ranked player after retaining world No. 8. Former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth finds himself in the 20th place just after Commonwealth Games 2022 men’s singles champion Lakshya Sen, who is at 19.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty retained their world No. 3 ranking in men’s doubles but the women’s doubles pairing of Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly slipped down a spot to 17th.
Rohan Kapoor and N Sikki Reddy, at world No. 33, are the best-ranked Indian pair in mixed doubles.
