LAKSHYA SEN BREAKS INTO TOP-10 AFTER ALL ENGLAND HEROICS

KUALA LUMPU: India’s ace shuttler Lakshya Sen has broken into the top 10 of the men’s singles badminton world rankings.

This is for the first time that Sen has cracked the top-10, taking up the ninth spot in the latest rankings released by BWF on Tuesday. The 20-year-old Sen has been in top form since clinching the world championships bronze medal last year and won the India Open in January. Lakshya also made the final of the German Open, earlier this month and followed it by the sensational final appearance in the All England Open on Sunday which helped him in jumping two spots to 9th. The young shuttler finished runner-up in a strong field at the All England, beating defending champion Lee Zee Jia and world bronze medallist Anders Antonsen on the way to the final.

In the All England final, Viktor Axelsen defeated Sen by 21-10, 21-15 at Utilita Arena in Birmingham. After taking part in that final, Sen is now only the fifth Indian – after Prakash Nath (1947), Prakash Padukone (1980 and 1981), Pullela Gopichand (2001), and Saina Nehwal (2015) – to make the summit clash of All England. Sen currently has 74,786 points in the men’s singles rankings. Top of the men’s singles list is being headed by Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen of Denmark, followed by Japan’s Kento Momota and another Dane Anders Antonsen.

In the men’s doubles rankings, the star duo of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy also moved up a spot to equal their career-best ranking of seventh. In the women’s doubles, the teenage pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand also reached their career-best ranking of 34, jumping 12 spots.