Saina regains World No 1 rank after silver at World Championships

New Delhi, Aug 20: Despite Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal's loss to Spain's Carolina Marin in the women's singles final of the recently-concluded World Badminton Championships in Jakarta on Sunday, the Indian displaced the Spaniard to regain the top spot in women's singles in the latest rankings of the Badminton World Federation (BWF) released on Thursday.

The 25-year-old Nehwal rose a place to overtake Marin to once again be ranked No 1. The reigning world champion dropped to No 2 while Chinese Taipei's Tai Tzu Ying overtook reigning Olympic champion Li Xuerui of China to be No 3.

On the contrary, in spite of a quarter-final finish last week, double World Championship bronze medallist PV Sindhu dropped a spot to be ranked No 14.

An early exit at the World Championships resulted in Kidambi Srikanth dropping a spot to No 4 in the men's singles rankings, while HS Prannoy retained the No 12 spot. Parupalli Kashyap, the 2014 Commonwealth Games gold medallist, jumped two places to be ranked No 8.

Meanwhile, a quarter-final finish in the Indonesian capital also helped Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa reach their career-best ranking of No 10 in women's doubles. The 2011 World Championships bronze medallist have lately been in form, having won the Canada Open and reaching the final of the US Open.

However, Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy dropped five places to No 22 in the men's doubles rankings.

There are no Indians in the Top 25 of the mixed doubles rankings.