Kuala Lumpur: In the newly released badminton world rankings by Badminton World Federation (BWF), Chen Long of China who was crowned the Dubai Superseries Finals champion last Sunday, leaped past Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia to end the year as the world No.1.
Chen Long became the second Chinese to top the men’s singles rankings in the last six years after Lin Dan became the top-ranked player for few weeks in 2012. Chen earned a total of 90001 points compare to Lee Chong Wei’s 84631 points. The 32-year-old Lee Chong Wei had held the number one ranking majority of the time for the last six years.
Jan Jorgensen of Denmark was ranked third while China’s Lin Dan slipped down one place to number six.
Meanwhile, the biggest surprise of the world rankings came from Kidambi Srikanth of India. Continuing his upward trend, the India’s leading male shuttler Kidambi Srikanth jumped two places to take a career-high fourth position in the latest rankings on Thursday.
With this move, the 21-year-old, became only the third Indian to break into the men’s singles top-five rankings. Legendary Praksh Padukone (No.1) and Pulella Gopichand (No.4) had earlier been in the top five.
In women’s singles, Chinese shuttlers Li Xue Rui, Wang ShiXian and Wang Yihan swept the top three spots unilaterally, while Saina Nehwal of India in fourth place, Sung Ji Hyun of Korea in fifth, Ratchanok Intanon sixth, whereas the BWF Superseries Finals champion Tai Tzu-ying rose to seventh.
The top five rankings for men’s doubles are: No. 1 – Lee Yong Dae/Yoo Yeon Seong (Korea), No. 2 – Mathias Boe/Carsten Mogensen (Denmark), No. 3 – Hiroyuki Endo/Kenichi Hayakawa (Japan), No. 4 – Hendra Setiawan/Mohammad Ahsan (Indonesia), No. 5 – Lee Sheng Mu-Tsai Chia Hsin (Taiwan).
Here are top five rankings in women’s doubles and mixed doubles:
Women’s Doubles:
1. Tian Qing-Zhao Yunlei (China), 2. Misaki Matsutomo-Ayaka Takahashi (Japan), 3. Luo Ying-Luo Yu (China), 4. Kamilla Rytter Juhl-Christinna Pedersen (Denmark), 5. Reika Kakiiwa-Miyuki Maeda (Japan)
Mixed Doubles:
1. Zhang Nan/Zhao Yunlei (China), 2. Xu Chen-Ma Jin (China), 3. Tontowi Ahmad-Liliyana Natsir (Indonesia), 4. Joachim Fischer Nielsen-Christinna Pedersen (Denmark), 5. Ko Sung Hyun-Kim Ha Na (Korea)
