Leander Paes returns to top-50 in World rankings

03/05/2018

Leander Paes, who reached the final in Dubai Championship last week, has jumped to the 46th position in world rankings. While the talismanic Indian ace is just two places behind Divij Sharan, who is at the 44th position, Rohan Bopanna continued to enjoy the top spot and at number 20.

Paes and Jamie Cerretani lost to the Netherland-Romanian pair of Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau 2-6, 6-7(2) in the doubles final of the Dubai Tennis Championship, to finish as the runner-up in the tournament. This was the 44-year-old tennis ace’s 97th ATP tour final, who is now three short of achieving a century in the summit tour clashes.

While personally, he wouldn’t have been happy for losing the match that he should have won, the good news came a bit too sooner as he returned to the top-50 with a six-place jump. Paes, right now, finds himself at the 46th position - just two places behind Divij Sharan, who also made a one place jump to secure the 44th position in the rankings. Rohan Bopanna, however, remained unchanged at the number 20 position as the top India doubles star at the moment.

While Purav Raja secures the next best position to Paes at number 62, Vishnu Vardhan reached a career-best doubles rank of 99 by gaining one place.

While it was mostly good news for the doubles stars of the country, singles stars faced demotion in the rankings. While Yuki Bhambri lost five places to slide to 110, Ramkumar Ramanathan lost two places to reach 135th position. Sumit Nagal also lost three places to reach 223 and to continue India’s woes, left-handed Prajnesh Gunneswaran droped down to 235.

In the women’s rankings category, young sensation Ankita Raina lost five places to be placed at 255 and the second Indian place was captured by Karman Kaur Thandi, who moved up three places to career-best 278.

In the women’s doubles category, injured Sania Mirza has remained unchanged at number 13, but Prarthna Thombare dropped two places to reach 141.