Satwik-Chirag overtakes Saina Nehwal's record of spending the most number of weeks at No. 1 in BWF World Rankings

Top-ranked Indian men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have overtaken Saina Nehwal's record for most weeks spent at number one by an Indian in the BWF World Rankings. 

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Satwik-Chirag have been at the top for 10 weeks in the BWF World Rankings. According to Olympics.com, Nehwal, who held the previous record, regained the top position on 18 August 2015 and remained there for nine weeks until 21 October 2015. 

The Indian pair, who have secured several historic BWF titles and other championship wins/medals since 2022, achieved the top position this year by reaching the finals of China Open, Malaysia Open and India Open. The French Open title win solidified their stronghold of the number one ranking in the BWF World Rankings. The ranking system takes into account the 10 highest-scoring events by a player/pair in the last 52 weeks.

SAT-CHI's domination at the top

Now, the Asian Games champions have 1,02,303 points on the leaderboard and are more than 5,000 points ahead of second-placed South Korean pair Kang Min Hyuk and Seo Seung Jae. 

Earlier, Satwik-Chirag became the first Indian doubles pair to reach the top of the BWF World Rankings in October last year. They reached that position after their win at the Asian Games in Hangzhou. But they could remain at the top position only for three weeks. 

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On the other hand, in men's singles, Kidambi Srikanth reached the top in April 2018 but could stay there only for a week. While legendary shuttler Prakash Padukone, who was the first Indian to clinch the prestigious All England Open title in 1980, was considered number one during his tenure, the computerized ranking point system came into the game much later.