Paris Olympics race heats up: Lakshya soars; Prannoy drops but Sindhu, Sat-Chi maintain bid

Commonwealth Games champion Lakshya Sen's hopes of making the cut at Paris received a boost as he grabbed the 15th position in the latest Olympic Games Qualification rankings following his semifinal finish at last week's French Open badminton tournament.

The 22-year-old from Almora had reached a career-best ranking of world number six in November 2022 but saw his rankings plummet to world No. 25 in April last year. He recovered to 11th spot by August but fell to 20 early this year following a series of early exits.

Things were not looking good after his first-round losses in Malaysia Super 1000 and India Super 750 as he stayed world No. 19 in the Olympic Games qualification for a few weeks but a semifinal finish at the Super 750 event in the French capital last week saw him take his tally to 74,897 points.

The 2021 World Championships bronze medallist also climbed a spot to world number 18 in the BWF World rankings issued on Tuesday.

However, the 2023 World Championships bronze medallist HS Prannoy slipped to eighth in the world ranking as well as in the Olympic Games qualification following his first-round loss last week, though he still remains the top-ranked Indian singles player in the race, while Kidambi Srikanth is ranked 26th.

The top-16 in the world by April-end will make the cut for the Olympics.

Among others, two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu (60,742), who finished at the quarterfinal stage in Paris last week, was ranked 13th in Paris qualification.

In women's doubles, the race to Paris is heating up with Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Jolly at 20th spot, six places ahead of compatriots Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand.

In the BWF world ranking, however, Treesa and Gayatri have toppled Ashwini-Tanisha to 22nd spot.

French Open champions Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty are ranked world number one in BWF World ranking but are placed second in the Olympic Games qualification.