Spotlight on Indian Badminton Players – Is the Sport In Good Health?

Last updated on April 11th, 2022 at 11:53 pm

There is no doubt that badminton is a massively popular sport in certain parts of the world, none more so than in India. Currently there are no Indian badminton players at number one in the world rankings. That said there are indeed lots of Indian badminton players competing on the world level. So I’m going to take a look at just which players we should know.

Obviously a couple of names jump out straight away such as former number one Saina Nehwal who has won an incredible amount of titles. Then there is the current women’s singles world number five Pusarla V. Sindhu whom was ranked number two just a few months ago.

Based on BWF Rankings 6th August 2019

Women’s Singles – Indian Badminton Players

What better place to start than a look at India’s women’s singles players seeing as they already have two superstars’ players. Pusarla V. Sindhu as I just mentioned is ranked at number five. Meanwhile Saina Nehwal is now back in the the top ten in 8th position.

The question is who are the other players to look out for? Well the next player in the world rankings is 20 year old Mugdha Agrey down in 62nd place followed closely by 22 year old Rituparna Das in 64th position. In total India have nine players in the top 100.

Men’s Singles – Indian Badminton Players

Switching to the men’s singles shows the top Indian player is still Kidambi Srikanth at number ten in the world. Aged 26 he has been as high as number three back in 2015. The next player is 24 year old Sameer Verma that is currently ranked at 13. Sai Praneeth B is also in the world’s top 20, he’s ranked at 19th in the world. Meanwhile Prannoy H.S slips down from a career high of 12th all the way down to a current rank of 31.

Other players include Parupalli Kashyap in 32nd and Subhankar Dey in 39th place. All in all there are ten Indian players in the top 100 men’s singles.

Women’s Doubles – Indian Badminton Players

Starting off with the women’s doubles and India’s highest ranking pairing are Ashwini Ponnappa & Reddy N.Sikki in 23rd place.  Next up are Jakkampudi Meghana &S Ram Poorvisha in 46th followed by Pooja Dandu & Sanjana Santosh in 47th position.  India have five pairs in the top 100. Clearly the women’s doubles is not quite the strongest competition at the moment from India’s point of view.

Men’s Doubles – Indian Badminton Players

Now the men’s and there are seven pairs in the top 100 rankings. The highest ranked pair are Satwiksairaj Rankireddy & Chirag Shetty in 9th place. Then comes Manu Attri & Reddy B.Sumeeth in 25th place and Arjun M.R. & Ramchandran Shlok at 48.

Mixed Doubles – Indian Badminton Players

Last but not least the mixed doubles and India’s top pairing of Pranaav Jerry Chopra & Reddy N. Sikki are in 23rd place. They are followed by Ashwini Ponnappa & Satwiksairaj Rankireddy in 27th place. In total India have seven pairs in the top 100 world rankings.

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Conclusion – Indian Badminton

The overall sport is very healthy with several top players regularly vying for titles. There is no doubting some areas are underachieving such as the women’s doubles and mixed doubles not having anyone inside the top 20 players.

That said overall the sport is still thriving helped in no small way by stars such as Pusarla V. Sindhu, Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth. These players are already driving more participation in the sport.

Pusarla V. Sindhu in particular looks more than capable of challenging the the likes of Akane Yamaguchi, Chen Yu Fei and Tai Tzu Ying for all the major titles.

India has several younger players climbing the world rankings and that can only bode well in the next few years. Widening the scope a little shows that India is indeed a badminton powerhouse at all levels. In fact India came away with their best ever medals haul at the BWF World Senior Championships back in 2017.

That was my look into the state of Indian Badminton and to highlight some of the lesser known Indian Badminton players. I’ll be taking a look at a different country next time so keep an eye out for that. I also intend to update this article periodically to reflect any changes.

If you require more information about Indian badminton you can find it over on the Badminton India website.