Treesa-Gayatri get rankings boost after historic bronze at BWF Worlds

New Delhi, Aug 25 (IANS) The Indian women’s star pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand have received a major boost in the world rankings after their bronze medal win in the recently concluded BWF World Championships here. The star doubles pair has jumped 12 spots from No.39 to reach World No.27 as per the latest rankings update.

This follows after Treesa and Gayatri clinched the only medal for India at the home Worlds. The duo made their way to the semifinals and became the first Indian women’s doubles pair to win a medal at the Championships since Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa won a bronze in 2011.

The two now have 44,192 points to their name as they made a big jump in the latest rankings update. They were ranked World No.39 in the previous week’s update with 33,692 points.

On their way to the medal, Treesa and Gayatri stunned fourth-seeded Chinese pair of Jia Yi Fan and Zhang Shu Xian in the quarterfinals, a brilliant come-from-behind win that saw them recover from a game down to clinch the contest 16-21, 21-15, 21-13. The two had a chance to beat the World No.1 and defending champions Liu Sheng Shu and Tan Ning in the final when they were a game up but lost the rest two games to take the bronze, which was India’s only medal at the Worlds. With their historic bronze, India kept their streak of winning at least one medal at the Worlds since 2011.

Meanwhile, there was a major shake-up in the top 10 of the men’s singles rankings. Indonesian shuttler Jonatan Christie has become the new World No.1 as he scaled two spots from third after his round-of-16 finish. Last week’s World No.1 Shi Yuqi lost five places after his first-round defeat to India’s Ayush Shetty as he now sits at No.6. Kunlavut Vitidsarn and Anders Antonsen also dropped a place each from No.2 and No.4, respectively.

Christo Popov jumped three places to reach No.2, while Chou Tien Chen is up by two places to stand fourth as per the latest rankings update. New World champion Alex Lanier has climbed three places to stand No.7, while India’s Lakshya Sen is up one place to No.13 and Ayush Shetty climbed two places to reach No.20.

–IANS

vm/bc