Chirag Shetty-Rankireddy break Saina's record as world No.1 rankings

Indian men’s badminton duo of  Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy broke the record of Saina Nehwal for most weeks as world No. 1 for an Indian Badminton Player. London 2012 Olympic bronze medalist Saina Nehwal held the previous record for being world no.1 for nine consecutive weeks. 

Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy have been the world No.1 men’s doubles pair for the last 10 weeks.

The BWF badminton rankings system takes into account the 10 highest-scoring events by a player/pair in the last 52 weeks.

Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy  Record 

The duo of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy became the first Indian doubles pair to be ranked world No.1 in the  Badminton World Federation (BWF) world rankings in October 2023 after their gold medal-winning performance in the Hangzhou Asian Games. However their reign at the top lasted just three weeks.

The duo again climbed to the top in the BWF ranking on January 23, 2024, after reaching finals in the China Masters, Malaysia Open and India Open. The Indian pair has also won the French Open 2024. 

Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy lead the points table with 1,02,303 points. Their closest rivals, Kang Min Hyuk and Seo Seung Jae of South Korea trail behind them by over 5,000 points.

World No.1 ranked Indian Badminton Player

• The international governing body of Badminton, BWF, introduced the ranking system on April 1, 1995. 
• The first Indian badminton player to be crowned world No.1 was Kidambi Srikanth. He reached the world No.1 ranking in men’s singles in April 2018.  He was No.1 for only one week.
• The second Indian player was Saina Nehwal. She became the world's No.1 player in women’s singles on 18 August 2015 and remained there for nine weeks, till 21 October 2015. 
• The third Indian player to be ranked world No.1 is the Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy pair.

BWF (Badminton World Federation )

The Badminton World Federation is the world governing body of Badminton sport.

It was set up as the International Badminton Federation in 1934 but later converted into the World Badminton Federation in 2006.

Members:  201 members.

Headquarters: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia