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Riding on her stupendous performance at the prestigious All England Championship, India's ace shuttler Saina Nehwal has regained the world number two spot again in the latest rankings released by the Badminton World Federation.
"I am happy to regain my position as number two in the world ranking. After All England, I knew I will become the number two this week. I will work hard and try to become the world number one soon," Saina told PTI.
The girl from Hyderabad, who will turn 25 in less than a week, has 74,381 points, 4,833 short of World No.1 LI Xuerui of China (79,214). Another Chinese, Shixian Wang, is ranked No.3 (72,227).
The 2010 Commonwealth Games champion is the highest ranked Indian after the legendary Prakash Padukone, who had become the world number one in the 1980s.
Saina had reached the number two ranking in July, 2010 before regaining the status in November.
The Olympic bronze medallist rose to the second spot again in mid January, 2013, before dropping a place in first week of March, and then again regaining her place with a semifinal place at the All England the same year. She retained the number two position till second week of June, 2013 before slipping again.
Young shuttler P V Sindhu, who had missed the All England due to an injury, retained her number nine position. Among male shuttlers, K Srikanth regained his number four position, improving one spot, while P Kashyap retained his 12th spot in the latest ranking.
However, young H S Prannoy, who had reached the second round of his maiden All England Championship last week, jumped two places to world number 17. 2010 Commonwealth Games champions Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa improved three places to once again break into the top 20, reaching the 19th place.
There are no Indians in the top 20 of men's doubles and mixed doubles category.
Image: Saina Nehwal
Photo: Matt King/Getty Images