Lakshya Sen shines with hope in Paris, enters Olympic qualifying 15th | Badminton News

Commonwealth Games champion Lakshya Sen, who advanced in Paris after reaching the semi-finals of last week’s French Badminton Open, has finished 15th in the latest Olympic qualifying rankings. Hope is strengthened. The 22-year-old from Almora reached a career-best ranking of world No. 6 in November 2022, but his ranking plummeted to world No. 25 in April last year. By August, he was back up to 11th, but fell to 20th earlier in the year due to a series of early exits.

Things weren’t looking good for him as he was ranked 19th in the world during Olympic qualifying after first-round losses at the Malaysian Super 1000 and Indian Super 750, but came up short at last week’s Super 750 event in the French capital. His score reached 74,897 points in the semi-finals.

The 2021 World Championships bronze medalist also rose to No. 18 in the BWF world rankings released on Tuesday.

However, 2023 World Championships bronze medalist HS Prannoy, who slipped to eighth in the world rankings and Olympic qualification after losing in the first round last week, remains India’s number one singles player. Kidambi Srikanth is ranked 26th.

The top 16 players in the world before the end of April will advance to the Olympics.

Among them, two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu (60,742), who reached the quarterfinals in Paris last week, ranked 13th in the Paris qualifying round.

In women’s doubles, the race to Paris is heating up, with Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Jolly ranked 20th, six places ahead of compatriots Theresa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand.

However, Tresa and Gayatri have pushed Ashwini Tanisha to 22nd place in the BWF world rankings.

French Open champions Rankireddy and Shetty are ranked No. 1 in the world in the BWF world rankings but ranked No. 2 in Olympic qualifying.