Varun and Samiya secured No. 2 spot in singles category.

Badminton World Federation: Six Indians in Top-10 of BWF world junior rankings

Indian shuttlers Varun Kapur and Samiya Imad Farooqui secured second rank in BWF's world junior rankings in their respective categories including six other Indians in the top- 10. Varun upgraded four ranks in the male singles category while Samiya leaped six ranks in the female category. Last year, Varun won sixth junior title in XII Portuguese International 2020 in November.

Samiya is an U-15 Asian Badminton Championship winner who also performed consistently last year in the junior games. "It's great to see many junior shuttlers doing so well. We currently have 10 Indians in the top-20 and the juniors have shown a lot of promise," president of Badminton Association of India (BAI) Himanta Biswa Sarma said in a release. He added, "This ranking will work as a desired boost for each of them and surely motivate them to work harder as it has been a tough year for COVID-19 affected sporting world and badminton is trying to make a comeback after almost a year's break." 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, BWF had frozen world junior rankings. However, BWF added International junior tournament results to the world junior rankings without deducting points from the previous weeks. Along with Samiya, three more Indian female shuttlers have entered the top-10 list- Tasnim Mir (4), Treesa Jolly (8) and Aditi Bhatt (10). In the males category, Varun is the only Indian player who entered the top-10 list while in the women's doubles category, Tressa (8), Tanisha Crasto (9) and Aditi Bhatt (10) joined the top-10 rankings.