Birdievents.com

Rising Indian shuttler Sourabh Varma cracked the top 50 in the latest world badminton rankings on Thursday, following his superb performance at the Syed Modi Grand Prix gold tournament last week.

Sourabh, who finished runner-up at the season-ending tournament, jumped 22 ranking places to be placed at the 50th position in the rankings released on Thursday.

The 20-year-old from Madhya Pradesh had a dream run in the prestigious tournament as he beat higher-ranked players such as Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia, Yun Hu of Hong Kong and Suppanyu Avihingsanon of Thailand en route to the final, where he lost to former Olympic and World champion Taufik Hidayat in Lucknow.

"This is my first year in the international circuit and I am happy to break into the top 50. I had calculated during the Syed Modi tournament that I will hopefully make it to the top 50. Now my target is to reach the top 30 next year," Sourabh told PTI.

"Gopi Sir has told me that I have improved and I have to keep working hard. I have learned a lot from the mistakes that I committed during the tournament. With experience, I can only improve," added the Bahrain International Challenger winner.

Top Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal continued to hold the fourth position in the women's rankings, while among other men's singles players, RMV Gurusaidutt gained three places to be at 40th place. P Kashyap and Ajay Jayaram were at the 27th and 28th position.

V Diju and Jwala Gutta jumped four places to the 14th spot after their semi-final finish at Syed Modi, while commonwealth Games gold medalist pair of Jwala and Ashwini Ponnappa were also at the 14th position.

Young Indian badminton player, Sourabh Verma is the main attention in the Syed Modi Memorial India Open Grand Prix Badminton Championship.   He prevailed from seventh seed Hu Yun of Hong Kong 23-21 21-19 and again won convincingly of Suppanyu Avinghisanon of Thailand 26-24 21-19 to earn his ticket to the final.  In the final he will meet Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia who hardly grabbed his winning ticket from Wing Ki Wong 21-16 15-21 and 21-18.

"I wanted to stick to my game-plan and that paid me rich dividends," said an elated Sourabh after his match.

However, Sourabh's young brother, Sameer, could not follow his brother paths.  He went down fighting to fifth seed Wing Ki Wong of Hong Kong 17-21, 17-21 in quarter finals.

The trend of Indian shuttlers playing in foreign leagues might soon be reversed as India will have its own badminton league a year from now, and will be looking to sign up foreign players to make it more attractive.

The proposal for the league was put forth by the Maharashtra Badminton Association (MBA) to the Badminton Association of India (BAI) on July 3. The league will be conducted on the lines of the recently concluded Maharashtra Badminton League (MBL). And as far as the format of the event is concerned, it will be organized on a far larger, and grander scale.

"The MBL got a good response this season. We always wanted an expansion of this league on a national scale. The work for the league will start in about a month's time once the paper work has been finalized.The league itself is scheduled to begin in a year's time. We are hoping to attract enough sponsors so that we can have foreign players playing in India, to make the league more attractive and exciting," Pradeep Gandhe, president of MBA told The Indian Express.

The idea for a nation-wide league was triggered by the success of the MBL which was the brainchild of the Pune District Metropolitan Badminton Association (PDMBA).

In a meeting held on July 3 at Lucknow during the Junior Asian Badminton Championships, the proposal was approved by the BAI. "The BAI gave the approval to the Maharashtra Badminton Association. The type of tournament and other details were not decided yet. The BAI were keen on the exposure of the sport and felt that this would be the best way forward," said Punnaiah Choudhary, secretary - events of the BAI.

The tournament, which will involve different franchises, will be held in order to increase the exposure of the sport in the country. The matches will be played in the Sudirman Cup format with men's and women's singles, men's and women's doubles and mixed doubles matches being held between the teams involved.

However, one of the events might be replaced by a match for the juniors in order to give them an opportunity to prove themselves on a big stage.

"We want to increase the standard of the game and also increase the competition among badminton players. One objective will definitely be to give the juniors more opportunity to play. We might even drop one event or discipline in order to accommodate a match expressly for the juniors," said Gandhe.