Next aim is to break into top 15 in the world: Paddler Sathiyan

TIL Desk Sports/ Elated after reaching a historic career-best World ranking of 28, paddler G. Sathiyan has now set his eyes on climbing to 15th in the ladder by the year end. This is the best ranking achieved by an Indian in singles. “I am on track. My next aim is to make it to the top 15 in the rankings by the end of this year,” Sathiyan told in a interview.

Sathiyan’s rankings shot up thanks to a series of fine performances over a period of 12 months, beginning February, 2018 (the best eight are taken for consideration). They include the Qatar Open (reached the round of 16), Hong Kong and Korea Open (round of 32), Australian Open (round of 16), and Austrian Open (round of 16).

The Chennai player also won an Asian Games bronze. Sathiyan’s upset wins over Marcos Freitas, Jeong Sangeun (Austrian Open), Oshima Yuya (Qatar Open), Kenta Matsudaira, Ueda Jin (Asian Games), Gao Ning, Andrej Gacina and Emmanuel Lebesson (all in World championships) gave him the confidence to push his game further up.