Manika Batra becomes first Indian singles paddler to break into top 25

Indian table tennis star Manika Batra achieved a career-high of world number 24 in the latest International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) rankings issued on Tuesday. 

This is the first time ever that an Indian paddler has broken into the top 25 in singles rankings, as per Olympics.com. 

Manika's standing in global table tennis improved massively following an impressive Saudi Smash tournament recently, as she became the first Indian singles player to reach the quarterfinals of a World Table Tennis Grand Smash event. 

In her run, she defeated world number two Wang Manyu of China in the round of 32 and world number 14 Nina Mittelham of Germany in the pre-quarterfinals before succumbing to world number five Hina Hayata from Japan in her final eight clash. 

Manika also regained her top spot among women paddlers in India, which she had lost just a month back to Sreeja Akula, for the first time ever in six years. Sreeja has dropped down to three places in global rankings and is currently at number 41. 

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In 2022, Manika Batra rose to world number four in the women's doubles category along with Archana Kamath - the best by any Indian table tennis player in any category. Men's table tennis veteran Achanta Sharath Kamal reigns supreme among Indian players despite sliding down three places to world number 40. 

Manav Thakkar and Harmeet Desai ranked at world number 62 and 63 respectively, are his closest rivals. Sathiyan Gnanasekaran has registered a drop of five places to world number 68. 

Asian Games bronze medalist pair of Suthirtha and Ayhika Mukherjee have moved up to the 13th spot in women's doubles while the duo of Manav Thakkar and Manush Shah dropped down three places to 15th in men's doubles rankings. Manika and Sathiyan, once among the top five in the mixed doubles category worldwide, have slid down world No. 24. 

However, Harmeet Desai and Yashaswini Ghorpade secured a massive jump of 693 spots to reach world No. 38 rank.

Harmeet and Yashaswini had a great Saudi Smash campaign as well, reaching the quarterfinals by first beating the world number 19 pair Paulina Vega and Nicolas Burgos of Chile, then the world number six team of Alvaro Robles and Maria Xiao of Spain. 

In the final eight clash, they were outdone by world's number one pair of Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha of China.