Fresh from her women’s singles victory at the WTT Contender in Lagos on Sunday, India’s Sreeja Akula jumped 19 places to reach a career-high ranking of World No. 24.
She leapfrogged Manika Batra, who has slipped down to World No. 29 in the last rankings released on Monday.
Sreeja had created history in Lagos by becoming the first Indian to clinch a singles title at a Contender level. Impressively, she also won the women’s doubles title, becoming the first Indian to win two titles at the same event at this level of World Table Tennis events.
In the singles final, Sreeja faced a tricky opponent in Ding Yijie, a 16-year-old Chinese star-in-the-making who is ranked outside the top 500. Sreeja fought back from a game down to dominate the match and clinch the title with a 4-1 win (10-12, 11-9, 11-6, 11-8, 11-6).
Sreeja combined with her Paris Olympics teammate Archana Kamath to thrash compatriots Diya Chitale and Yashaswini Ghorpade 3-0 (11-9, 11-6, 12-10) in the women’s doubles final.
Paris-bound Sreeja has been in phenomenal form in both singles and doubles. In singles, her 5-game win over Sutirtha Mukherjee in which she calmly saved three match points in the deciding game was mighty impressive. Her doubles partnership with Archana is important since they will most likely be the doubles pairing at the Paris Olympics in the women’s team event.
It is the first time India have qualified for the men and women’s team events at the Olympics and this WTT tournament was part of their preparation camp under recently-appointed head coach Massimo Costantini.
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