Divij Sharan broke into the top-50 for a career-high ranking while Sania Mirza dropped out of top-10 for the first time since March 2014 in the latest ATP and WTA charts released on Monday.
The left-handed Sharan is ranked 50th, gaining a place since last week. The 31-year-old Delhi player did not let his split with long-time partner Purav Raja affect him as he consistently did well on the Tour despite not having a stable partnership. He had reached the final of the last three tournaments he participated in, winning the ATP 250 European Open while ending runner-up at Challenger events in Brest and Tashkent with different partners.
India now has five players in the top 100 and two in the top 50 in doubles rankings with Rohan Bopanna, ranked 14th, leading the chart. Purav Raja (62), Leander Paes (70) and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (97) are the other top-100 Indian players.
In the singles ranking, Yuki Bhambri (140) continued to lead the Indians followed by Ramkumar Ramanathan (148), Prajnesh Gunneswaran (255), Sumit Nagal (331) and Balaji (350).
“I made my first ATP point in 2003. It’s been a long and exciting journey since then. There has been a lot of hard- work, sacrifices, experiences, travel, decisions, ups and downs but most importantly I am grateful for the opportunity to do what I love doing the most which is playing tennis,” Sharan told PTI from Bratislava in Slovakia.
Sharan, who has won 19 ITF Futures titles, 13 Challenger trophies and three ATP Tour titles, said now he has the “belief that he can win a Grand Slam”.
“The guys to whom we are losing close matches are the ones who are winning Slams. We have beaten them too sometimes, so I feel I am up there and can win a Grand Slam,” he said.
Also making good progress in the doubles is Vishnu Vardhan, who jumped 16 places to touch his career-best ranking of 118. Vardhan and his partner N Sriram Balaji (139) had won the Shenzhen Challenger on Saturday to earn 90 ranking points each.
In the WTA charts, Ankita Raina is India’s top-ranked player at number 281 and is followed by Karman Kaur Thandi (307) and Pranjala Yadlapalli (483).
In the doubles, Sania Mirza fell to number 12 after going down three spots. She was in the top 10 consistently in the last four years. The last time she featured outside top 10 was on March 3, 2013.
The former world No 1’s slide started this season, which she began on top but could not qualify for the year-end WTA Finale, where top-eight pairs and top-eight singles players compete.
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