MAY 26: Riding on a fighting display inthe recent Thomas Cup finals, National champion Pulella Gopi Chand has leapfrogged 16 places to break into the top 20 in the men's singles world rankings.Among the other Indians, Sidharth Jain also continued his climb up the rankings ladder, moving 13 places to 54th after another good display in the same tournament while Nikhil Kanetkar climbed three places to 53rd.National women's champion Aparna Popat, serving a three-month ban for a doping offence, was placed 52nd in women's singles.The 27-year-old Gopichand jumped to 19th position from 36 at the start of the premier team event at Kuala Lumpur, making his maiden entry among the badminton elite dominated by Asian players, according to the latest rankings released by the International Badminton Federation (IBF).The Indian Oil Corporation officer, who defeated Shon Sheung Mo in the last league match against South Korea and also took a game off Malaysia's Woong Choong Hann, has gleaned 937.20 points from eight individual competitions and 667.20 from two team events, making it a total of 160.44.Rankings are calculated by adding points earned in both individual and team events, divided by the total number of tournaments participated.This is the highest ranking achieved by an Indian after the legendary Prakash Padukone, who held the unofficial world number one ranking after claiming the All-England title in 1980.Jain, who rocketted to 67th from 105 after winning the French Open title last month, continued his onward March after a good display in the Thomas Cup finals. He had defeated Malaysian star Rosalin Hashim at Kuala Lumpur and was also the only Indian to cross 10 points in a game against the star-studded Denmark.Denmark's World No 1 Peter Gade Christensen and his close rival Hendrawan of Indonesia maintained their place atop the list.Reigning Olympic Champion Poul-Eric Hoyer-Larsen and Wong Choong Hann exchanged the third and fourth places while Indonesian teenager Taufik Hidayat, who played a big role in his team's fourth successive Thomas Cup triumph, was following at fifth.China's reigning world champion Sun Jun, still out of action because of an ankle injury suffered in February, was the biggest loser as he dropped to 41 from 20 last week.Sun Jun's Sydney Olympics berth now looks in jeopardy asthe Chinese federation had earlier said he would be considered if he maintains his place among the top 16.The big slump in his position was also because of the lossof the points he had earned by winning the world title in Copenhagen last year.
