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Sreeja Akula dethroned Manika Batra to become India's World No.1 as she moved up one spot to a career-best world No. 38 in the latest ITTF Table Tennis World Rankings issued on Tuesday.
While Sreeja rose one spot, Manika Batra, India's top-ranked player in the women's singles category for the previous six years, fell two places to 39th in the rankings. The 25-year-old Sreeja has had a promising start to the 2024 season. She won her first international competition, the WTT Feeder Corpus Christi 2024 in Texas, in January, defeating Lily Zhang of the United States 3-0 (11-6, 18-17, 11-5) in the final. Sreeja also won the WTT Feeder Beirut II singles title, defeating Luxembourg's Sarah D Nutte 3-1 (6-11, 12-10, 11-5, 11-9) in the final. The Indian table tennis player defeated then-world No. 2 Wang Yidi of the People's Republic of China in straight games (11-7, 11-9, 13-11) in the group stage of the World Team Table Tennis Championships in Busan in February. Sreeja is also a two-time national champion, having won the Commonwealth Games gold medal in mixed doubles with Sharath Kamal in 2022. More recently, Sreeja was eliminated in the group stage of the ITTF World Cup 2024 in Macao, China, losing 3-1 (11-4, 11-4, 13-15, 11-2) to reigning Olympic champion and world No. 4 Chen Meng. Manika, on the other side, hasn't participated in many feeder tournaments recently, which has resulted in a loss of ranking points. She has 526 ranking points to Sreeja's 529. Sreeja and Manika will compete at the Saudi Smash 2024, which will take place in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, beginning May 1. (ANI)
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