Indian badminton star and two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu is currently recovering from a knee injury and will be back in action next year. It was during the round of 16 match against Thailand’s Supanida Kathetong at the French Open, in October, that she retired midway, due to the strain in her left knee. Since then she’s going through rehab in Bengaluru.
Despite her absence from the BWF circuit for over two months now, she has managed to gain a spot in the latest BWF rankings. On Tuesday, she reached the WR-11 mark, surpassing Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon. That happened largely because the latter gave a walkover in her pre-quarters match to Goh Jin Wei, at the Hong Kong Open in September, and hasn’t played since then.
From last week to now, Intanon lost close to 4000 points, while Sindhu’s points remained the same.
Road Ahead for PV Sindhu
With the Paris 2024 Olympics in mind, Sindhu added legendary Prakash Padukone to her team. Struggling for the entire 2023, she would hope to regain form, once she makes a comeback. Although not confirmed as of now, she perhaps could play at the India Open 2024, which starts from January 16-21.
Other Indians in BWF Rankings
In the men’s singles, Lakshya Sen gained a spot to be WR-16, while Sameer Verma went up by 16 places to be WR-75. Unnati Hooda made her way to WR-67, after a string of good performances. The women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto rose to WR-24, within touching distance of WR-19 team of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand.