Search: PTI Saina zooms to career-best second in badminton rankings-Thu, Jul 15

Saina zooms to career-best second in badminton rankings

Thu, Jul 15 02:57 PM(GOOD WISHES TO HER)

New Delhi, Jul 15 (PTI) Ace Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal is just a step away from realising her goal of becoming the world''s numero uno player as she jumped one place to a career-best second in the latest international rankings. "I am very happy to achieve the world number two so soon in my career.

The last three wins have really helped me. It is a great feeling but I feel my priority still will be to win more tournaments for India rather than focussing on ranking," Saina told PTI. "It will be difficult to hold on to the ranking but I hope to continue my hard work and win more titles and become the number one player soon," said the Hyderabadi shuttler, who is down with fever and cold.

The 20-year-old Saina made a meteoric rise following her back-to-back title triumphs at the India Open Grand Prix and the Singapore Open Super Series, reaching the world number three last month. And after the Indian defended her Indonesian Open Super Series crown to complete her hat-trict of titles, it was just a matter of time that she jumped to the second place.

By virtue of the consecutive title wins, Saina now has 64791.2637 points and is just behind Chinese Yihan Wang, while Xin Wang of China is in the third place. Saina''s father Harvir Singh also expressed happiness and hoped her daughter can continue her good work for the country.

"God has been kind. It is a marvellous achievement.

I hope she can continue to work hard and win more laurels for the country," Harvir Singh said. In March, Saina had attained the fifth position after becoming the first Indian woman to reach the semifinals of the prestigious All England Super Series Championships.

However, she dropped to the sixth position in the subsequent weeks. Saina''s next engagement will be in the World badminton Championship in Paris next month, before playing the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games.

In the men''s ranking, the Indian trio of Chetan Anand, P Kashyap and Arvind Bhatt were at 15th, 25th and 27th spot respectively, while mixed doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and V Diju were static at the seventh place.