New Delhi: It should be a day of contrasting emotions for PV Sindhu as on Thursday she climbed back to her career-best ranking but exited from the Japan Open. Sindhu went down to local favourite and her fierce rival Nozomi Okuhara 21-18, 21-8 in the second round match in Tokyo.
But there was some good news as well as the latest badminton rankings were released on Thursday and Sindhu climbed back to being world number two, equalling her previous-best ranking. This was already confirmed before and the rankings would have reflected that only on Thursday as they get updated on a weekly basis.
#BWFRankingPrediction21Sep17 WS: PV Sindhu is back to World No.2 after winning at Korea! @Pvsindhu1
Okuhara top 8! https://t.co/le93xHLhSH pic.twitter.com/7kemhxx3Ol— Badminton Talk (@BadmintonTalk) September 17, 2017
Sindhu recently won the Korea Open in Seoul where she beat Okuhara in the final to confirm the number two ranking in the world. Japanese shuttler Okuhara now leads Sindhu 4-3 in the head-to-head count after the win in Tokyo. After Sindhu’s exit, Saina Nehwal remains India’s top hope in Japan.