Sathiyan Gnanasekaran become first Indian to enter top 25 of ITTF rankings
Sathiyan Gnanasekaran has made history by becoming the first Indian to break into the top 25 of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) rankings. The youngsterās previous top ranking was at 28 but he has risen by four points after the recent Asia Cup in order to reach 24.
Gnanasekaran was ranked at 28 at the start of this year but post his phenomenal run in the Asia Cup, which was played between April 5 to 7 in Yokohama, and in the ITTF World Championship from April 21 to 28 in Hungary has now placed him at 24. The Chennai player finished sixth in the continental championship and was the only Indian to reach the round of 32 in the marquee event. Thereby, the former engineer was extremely delighted and did not fail to credit his coach S Raman for the turnaround in his fortunes.
"Really happy with way, I am playing and I feel I am moving in the direction to reaching the top-15 by the end of 2019. Also, I can't thank my coach enough for his support and guidance," the Commonwealth games gold medalist said, reported PTI.
The 2018 Arjuna awardee also termed his exploits as historic on his official twitter handle.
HISTORIC FEAT š„
ā Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (@sathiyantt) April 29, 2019
WORLD RANK 24š
Extremely happy to share that I have achieved my Career high WORLD RANK 24 & became the first Indian paddler ever in Indian Table Tennis history to hit the World Top 25 mark!!
Special thanks to my coach Raman sir for his support!@RamanS22905417 pic.twitter.com/4q1h7jwoYd
36-year-old Sharath Kamal, who has four gold, one silver and three bronze medals in Commonwealth games, lost in the Round of 64 in the World Championship and went down by nine places to 46. India number one Manika Batra, who also has two gold Commonwealth gold medals and three South Asian Games gold medals, lost in the round of 64 to go down by three positions to 59.
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