Saina zooms to career-best third in rankings

Ace Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal on Thursday took a giant stride towards realising her goal of becoming the world's numero uno player as she jumped three places to a career-best third in the latest international rankings.

Saina's rise follows back-to-back title triumphs at the India Open Grand Prix and the Singapore Open Super Series respectively.

By virtue of the consecutive titles earlier this month, Saina, with 64791.2637 points, made a significant upward movement in the chart and is just behind Chinese duo of Yihan Wang and Xin Wang.

Saina's previous best ranking was a fifth position which she attained in March this year after becoming the first Indian woman to reach the semi-finals of the prestigious All England Super Series Championships.

However, she dropped to the sixth position in the subsequent weeks.

Saina is presently playing in the Indonesia Open and is well on course for a hat-trick of titles after reaching the quarterfinals of the Super Series event.

In the men's ranking, the Indian trio of Chetan Anand, P Kashyap and Arvind Bhatt moved up a rung to the 16th, 27th and 28th spot respectively.