Srikanth only Indian in Race to Guangzhou Rankings

Kidambi Srikanth's five quarterfinal finishes in the past six tournaments made him the only Indian player in the top 10 of the Race to Guangzhou rankings which will decide the qualifiers for the year end BWF World Tour Finals.

Kidambi Srikanth finished top eight in five of the six tournaments considered for the Race to Guangzhou Rankings.

Top Indian shuttlers Saina Nehwal and P. V. Sindhu are currently outside the top 10, while Kidambi Srikanth is ranked sixth in the Race to Guangzhou Rankings, which will determine the qualifiers to the BWF World Tour Finals.

While Srikanth rode on his quarterfinal finishes in five of his six tournaments, Sindhu and Saina are ranked 13th and 12th respectively in women’s singles list which is being headed by Thailand’s Ratchanok Inthanon.

Sindhu has not been in the best of form this season with just two semifinal finishes to show, while Saina had started the year with a semifinal show at Malaysia and a title win at Indonesia Masters but didn’t sizzle after that, reaching the quarters at All England Championships and Singapore Open.

Saina’s performance was also affected after she was diagnosed with Acute Gastroenterities in March.

Srikanth is the only Indian in the Race to Guangzhou Rankings which is being headed by Jonatan Christie, who rode on his second title of the year at the Australian Open earlier this month.

Sameer Verma, who had reached the semifinals at the World Tour Finals last year, is ranked 30th.

The World Tour will begin again next month with the Canada Open Super 100 (July 2-7), followed by US Open Super 300 (July 9-14), Indonesia Open Super 1000 (July 16-21), Russian Open Super 100 (July 16-21), Japan Open Super 750 (July 23-28) and Thailand Open Super 500 (July 30- August 4).