Saina up to No.5, Jwala-Ashwini fall four spots in BWF rankings

Saina Nehwal, who recently clinched her second Australian Open title after beating Chinese Sun Yu, exchanged places with Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara, who now occupies the sixth spot in the table led by Spain’s Carolina Marin.

Saina Nehwal poses during the awarding ceremony at the Australian Badminton Open.

London bronze medallist Saina Nehwal rose to the No.5 spot in women’s singles while the women’s doubles combination of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa slipped four places to be placed 20th in the latest Badminton World Federation (BWF) rankings which were released on Thursday.

Saina, who recently clinched her second Australian Open title after beating Chinese Sun Yu, exchanged places with Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara, who now occupies the sixth spot in the table led by Spain’s Carolina Marin.

Saina’s city-mate PV Sindhu retained her 10th spot in women’s singles.

Meanwhile, inconsistency and poor form cost 2010 Commonwealth Games champions duo of Jwala and Ashwini as they fell four spots to be positioned at the 20th place in women’s doubles.

In men’s singles, Sameer Verma climbed a place to be 36th while B. Sai Praneeth fell four places to be placed 37th in the rankings.

In men’s doubles Manu Attri and B. Sumeeth Reddy also made a downward movement to fall two places to No.23 while young combo of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Akshay Dewalkar moved up one spot to 29th.