Sreeja Akula Dethrones Manika Batra as Top-Ranked Indian Women’s Singles Table Tennis Player
Achanta Sharath Kamal continues to be top-ranked Indian men’s singles player
image for illustrative purpose
Indian paddler Sreeja Akula dethroned Manika Batra as the top ranked Indian women’s singles player when she moved to World Rank 38 in the latest release by the ITTF.
Manika, who was India’s top-ranked player for more than six years, is now ranked 39 in the world, one place below Sreeja. Yashaswini Ghorpade (ranked 99) and Archana Kamath (ranked 100) have also moved to the top-100 in the women’s singles rankings.
In the men’s singles category, Achanta Sharath Kamal is the top-ranked Indian at World No. 37 with Sathiyan Gnanasekaran ranked 60 in the world. Manav Thakkar, who was earlier ranked 60, now dropped one place to 61 while Harmeet Desai is ranked 64 in the world.
Sreeja’s rise in the ranking comes after a stellar 2024 season where the 25-year-old won her first international title when she triumphed at the WTT Feeder Corpus Christi 2024 in Texas in January. The young paddler then went on to win the WTT Feeder Beirut II singles title and had an impressive outing at the World Team Table Tennis Championships in Busan in February.
The 25-year-old is also a two-time national champion and has won the Commonwealth Games gold medal in mixed doubles along with Sharath Kamal in 2022.
Manika’s drop in ranking resulted from the fact that she did not play in a lot of feeder tournaments recently and that resulted in a loss of ranking points. Manika now has 526 ranking points while Sreeja has 529 points.
Other ranked Indian players are Sutirtha Mukherjee (ranked 122 in women’s singles), Ayhika Mukherjee (ranked 137 in women’s singles) while the pair of Sutirtha and Ayhika are ranked 14 in the world in women’s doubles. Sreeja and Diya Chitale are ranked 28th with Manika and Archana Kamath ranked 50th in the world.
In the men’s doubles category, Manav Thakkar and Manush Shah are ranked 12th while Sathiyan and Sharath Kamal are way below at rank 59.
In the mixed doubles, Sathiyan and Manika are now World No. 19 while Manav and Archana are World No. 33 with Diya and Manush at World No. 38.
