Has Indian men’s badminton started to peak and prosper?

Kidambi Srikanth,Parupalli Kashyap,Haseena Sunil Kumar Prannoy,Ajay Jayaram,Sai Praneeth Bhamidipati, Anand Pawar,Rajah Menuri Venkata Gurusaidutt,Manu Attri, B. Sumeeth Reddy, Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Akshay Dewalkar.

Who are these guys, really?

These young stalwarts are the modern face of Indian men’s badminton making the country proud in Badminton World Federation (BWF) competitions across the globe.

These are the players ranked in the top 100 of men’s singles and doubles by the BWF.

Kidambi Srikanth and Parupalli Kashyap are at the forefront of this brigade.

Pictograms of Olympic sports – Badminton. This is unofficial sample picture. Images of official Olympic pictograms for 1948 Summer Olympics and all Summer Olympics since 1964 can be found in corresponding Official Reports. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: kashyap is a indian badminton player (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Kashyap has been around for a while and captured gold at the 2014 Commonwealth Games at Glasgow. He was also a quarter-finalist at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. He is ranked 10 in the world.

Kidambi Srikanth is the highest ranked Indian currently No.3 in the world. He clinched the 2014 China Open Super Series Premier beating Lin Dan in the final. He is the first Indian male to win a Super Series Premier title.

Haseena Sunil Kumar Prannoy is ranked 12th in the World and had his best year by far in 2014. He was a semi-finalist at India Open Grand Prix Gold,Bitburger Open Grand Prix Gold,Macau Open Grand Prix Gold and the Sri Lanka Open International Badminton Challenge in Colombo. He was also a finalist at the Vietnam Open Grand Prix crowning it with a tournament win at the Indonesia Open Grand Prix Gold.

Ajay Jayaram is next on the list at 32 and his best is the 2014 Dutch Open Grand Prix.

Following closely at No. 33 is B. Sai Praneeth whose exploits at the US Open last week catapulted him to the limelight.

RMV Guru Saidutt and Anand Pawar at 44 and 55  round up the Indian men in the top 100.

Pairs Manu Attri & B. Sumeeth Reddy and Pranaav Jerry Chopra & Akshay Dewalkar are ranked 24 and 33 in men’s doubles respectively.

Tournaments organised by the BWF are ranked in the following order:

World Ranking Points Table

*At the Olympic Games 3rd place will receive 9200 points. Fourth place will receive 8400 points.

Source: http://bwfbadminton.org

Only the best 10 results are considered while aggregating points.

Women players such as Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu and even Jwala Gutta have monopolized the headlines with their stunning deeds. But Force Men will not be left behind.

Indian badminton fans can look forward to having another All-England champion , if not, a numero uno from amongst the above.

Let’s hope it’s sooner rather than later.