Manika Batra, an Indian table tennis star, reached a career-high of world number 24 in the current International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) rankings released on Tuesday. This extraordinary surge saw her rise 15 spots from her prior position of No. 39. Manika not only retained her position as India’s top-ranked player, surpassing Sreeja Akula, but she also made history as the first Indian woman to reach the top 25 singles rankings at the age of 25. This is the first time an Indian paddler has reached the top 25 in the singles rankings. Manika’s worldwide table tennis status skyrocketed after a spectacular Saudi Smash tournament, where she became the first Indian singles player to reach the quarterfinals of a World Table Tennis Grand Smash event.
During her run, she defeated world number two Wang Manyu of China in the round of 32 and world number 14 Nina Mittelham of Germany in the pre-quarterfinals before losing to world number five Hina Hayata of Japan in the final eight. Manika also regained her top rank among Indian women paddlers, which she had lost to Sreeja Akula only a month before, for the first time in six years. Sreeja has fallen three places in the global rankings, to number 41.
Manika Batra and Archana Kamath rose to world number four in the women’s doubles category in 2022, the highest ranking achieved by any Indian table tennis player in any category. Despite dropping three places to world number 40, men’s table tennis veteran Achanta Sharath Kamal remains the top Indian player. His closest challengers are Manav Thakkar and Harmeet Desai, rated 62 and 63 in the world rankings, respectively. Sathiyan Gnanasekaran has dropped five places to world number 68.
Suthirtha and Ayhika Mukherjee, the Asian Games bronze medalists, have risen to 13th place in women’s doubles, while Manav Thakkar and Manush Shah have slipped three places to 15th in men’s doubles. Manika and Sathiyan, who were formerly among the top five in the world in mixed doubles, are now ranked 24th. Harmeet Desai and Yashaswini Ghorpade, on the other hand, made a stunning 693-spot jump to world number 38.
Harmeet and Yashaswini also had a successful Saudi Smash campaign, reaching the quarterfinals after defeating Chile’s world number 19 pair Paulina Vega and Nicolas Burgos, as well as Spain’s world number six combination Alvaro Robles and Maria Xiao. In the last eight, they were defeated by Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha of China, the world’s top pair.
