Srikanth Kidambi conquers, becomes World No. 1

Indian badminton ace Kidambi Srikanth reached the highest feat in badminton, reached World No. 1, his career best, in the latest BWF Badminton Rankings release on April 12th.

That’s another historic moment for India after winning gold in the recently concluded Mixed-Team event at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

The 25-year-old replaced the Danish player Viktor Axelsen with 76,895 points on the BWF World Rankings chart. The latter, lost 1660 points as he skipped few tournaments due to injury and couldn’t defend the Malaysia Open title which he won last year. The last Malaysian Open took place between April 4 and 9 in 2017. The event stands postponed this year.

The Guntur lad was supposed to be on the numero uno spot last year, but couldn’t make it, due to skipping few year-end tournaments, notwithstanding winning four super series titles -  Indonesia, Australia, Denmark, France - in 2017.

In this modern era of badminton, Srikanth will be the second Indian to join the club of elite players after Saina Nehwal, who has reached the top spot in 2015. And, Saina remains the only Indian girl markedly, to have achieved the feat.

It was Prakash Padukone from India who bagged the World No. 1 rank in 1980, after winning the top three tournaments when computerised rankings were not implemented, and now, Srikanth will be the second Indian men to reach the top spot in the Indian badminton history.