Achanta Sharath Kamal-Gnanasekaran Sathiyan pair breaks into top 20 in ITTF men's doubles rankings

New Delhi: The Indian doubles pair of Achanta Sharath Kamal and Gnanasekaran Sathiyan entered top-20 in the latest ITTF men’s doubles world ranking, even as Anthony Amalraj broke into the singles top-100.

The duo, who clinched silver medal in Hungarian Open table tennis tournament last month, jumped 20 places to claim 17th position.

Tamil Nadu paddler Amlraj moved up seven positions to break into the top-100.

In the women’s singles rankings, Sutirtha Mukherjee made a massive jump of 51 spots to be at her career-best 109th position. The Kolkata paddler is now the second-highest-ranked Indian woman in the world rankings after Manika Batra, who went five places up to secure 62nd position.

Mukherjee has been impressive in recent past with above-par performances during the Olympics Team qualifying event, Hungarian Open and Portugal Open.

Even though the Indian team couldn’t seal an Olympic berth during the qualifying event in January, reigning national champion Mukherjee caught everyone’s attention when she stunned then world no 19 and her former teammate of Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) League Bernadette Szocs during the team’s 3-2 defeat against Romania in the Round of 16.

Among the male players, Sathiyan is the highest-ranked Indian at 31st in the singles rankings. Achanta Sharath Kamal (38), Harmeet Desai (87) and Anthony Amalraj (98) are the other three Indians to be ranked in the top-100.