Lakshya Sen breaks into top 10 of badminton world rankings

India’s Lakshya Sen has broken into the top 10 of the men’s singles badminton world rankings for the first time, taking up the ninth spot in the latest standings.

The young shuttler’s ranking has been on an upward trajectory since his impressive run started in the latter half of last year.

Most recently, the 20-year-old Lakshya Sen finished second in a strong field at the All England Open on Sunday, beating defending champion Lee Zee Jia and world bronze medallist Anders Antonsen on the way to the final.

This was his third straight final appearance at a BWF World Tour event since winning the Super 500 India Open at the start of the year and a second-place finish at the German Open.

Lakshya Sen’s exploits in the last six months also include a bronze medal at the world championship and a podium finish at the BWF World Tour Final and Hylo Open.

Lakshya Sen is now the highest-ranked Indian in the men’s singles badminton, above world silver medallist Kidambi Srikanth at 12 and Tokyo Olympian B Sai Praneeth at 19.

Along with Lakshya Sen, India’s top men’s doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy also moved up a spot to equal their career-best ranking of seventh.

The Chirag-Satwik duo won the India Open, finished third at the Super 1000 Indonesia Open and also represented India at Tokyo 2020.

In the women’s doubles, the teenage team of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand also reached its career-best ranking of 34, jumping 12 places since the previous update.

The two won the Odisha Open 2021 and came second at the Syed Modi 2022, before reaching the semi-finals at the All England Open.

The other Indian pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy lost a place but are still the highest-ranked women’s doubles team from India at world No. 20.