Indian table tennis player Sreeja Akula attains career-best ranking of World No. 24

Lausanne [Switzerland], June 25 (ANI): Indian table tennis player Sreeja Akula claimed a career-best ranking of world No. 24 after clinching the WTT Contender Lagos title last week.

Akula now holds the honour of being India’s highest-ranked player in the Women’s Singles standings, rising 19 spots to World No.24, leapfrogging Manika Batra.

The 25-year-old Indian table tennis player jumped 19 places in the latest International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) rankings released on Tuesday to displace Manika Batra as the country’s top women’s singles player.

Last week, Akula scripted history as she won the World Table Tennis (WTT) Contender singles title in Lagos, becoming the first Indian to win the singles crown.

In the thriller title match held in Lagos, Sreeja prevailed against Ding Yijie of China 4-1 with a score of 10-12, 11-9, 11-6, 11-8, 11-6. Sreeja clinched the singles and doubles titles at Lagos.

Akula also equalled the record for the best single ranking achieved by an India table tennis player.

Sathiyan Gnanasekaran placed 24th in the men’s singles category in 2019; Manika Batra was ranked 24th in the women’s singles category last month.

Sreeja, who will represent India in table tennis at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, won a historic match on Sunday in Lagos to become the first table tennis player from India to win a WTT Contender singles title. She won the Lagos singles championship by defeating Yijie Ding of the People’s Republic of China 4-1 in the championship match.

Along with her Paris 2024 teammate Archana Kamath, Sreeja also won the Lagos women’s doubles championship, defeating fellow countrymen Diya Chitale and Yashaswini Ghorpade 3-0 in the last match.

Manika Batra fell one spot to 29th in the women’s singles rankings according to the most recent ITTF rankings, while Ayhika Mukherjee–a backup player for the Indian table tennis team traveling to Paris in 2024–rose 48 spots to rank 92nd.