For a badminton player playing at the highest level, they have one ambition – to reach the world No. 1 ranking in the sport. Over the years, we have seen fierce competition between top-ranked shuttlers to claim the pole position.

Indian players have also engaged in this never-ending race, with five of them being successful in clinching the top spot in their careers.

So here are the Indian players who have achieved the world No. 1 ranking in badminton.

1. Prakash Padukone | 1980

In 1980, Prakash Padukone became the first-ever Indian shuttler to attain the No. 1 ranking in badminton. His march to the top spot started back in 1972 as he swept the junior and senior national championships.

That set him up for the challenges he would smash at the global level. In 1978, Padukone bagged the men’s singles gold medal at the Commonwealth Games before clinching the 1980 All England Open.

As he laid his hands on the All England Open title, he rose to the No. 1 ranking, becoming the first Indian badminton player to achieve the feat. And he was just 24 at that time!

For the next nine years, Padukone continued to make headlines with his brilliant performances, while he bowed as one of India’s greatest in badminton.

2. Saina Nehwal | 2015

India had to wait for another 35 years to see one of its shuttlers claim the No. 1 spot. In the meantime, though, a shuttler from Haryana was grinding her way to the top.

The shuttler is none other than Saina Nehwal. She started her badminton journey with the BWF World Junior Championships victory in 2008 before entering the Summer Olympics the same year.

She couldn’t return with a medal in the 2008 Olympics but continued her great work in the Open tournaments. In the 2012 Olympics, though, Nehwal managed to win bronze, becoming the first Indian shuttler to win an Olympic medal in badminton.

Thanks to the massive boost, she went on to deliver peak performances in the next three years. That ultimately resulted in Nehwal topping the world rankings for the first time in 2015.

3. Srikanth Kidambi | 2018

Three years after Nehwal’s peak, India saw another shuttler rise to the top of the rankings. This time, it was Srikanth Kidambi, who is one of the best badminton players in the country.

Hailing from Andhra Pradesh, he made headlines in 2014 by defeating one of the greatest badminton players, Lin Dan, in the final of the China Open. With the ball set rolling, Srikanth started taking bigger strides, adding four Super Series titles in 2017.

That kept him on the heels of claiming the top spot, and a gold (mixed team) and a silver (singles) in the 2018 Commonwealth Games bestowed the crown on his head. He became the third Indian to seal the pole position and the second after Padukone.

4. Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty | 2023

Up until 2023, only the singles players were able to clinch the No. 1 spot. But the formidable men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty scripted history in 2023.

Paired together for the first time in 2016, the duo shared a great rapport and went on to claim many titles. Before their rise to the top, Satwik-Chirag started turning heads at the BWF International Challenge, winning four events in 2016.

Then the duo set their eyes on the Open tournaments, winning the Hyderabad Open in 2018. It was just the start of their remarkable run at the highest level.

Cut to 2023, Satwik-Chirag won seven Open titles, with the Indonesia Open victory being the most prominent one. In October 2023, the pair stormed their way into the Asian Games final, where they defeated South Korea’s Choi Sol-gyu-Kim Won-ho to bag the gold and eventually the world No. 1 ranking.

Read Next | Top 7: Women Tennis Stars to Win the French Open and Wimbledon in the Same Year