NEW DELHI: Karman Kaur Thandi today became only the sixth Indian woman tennis player to crack the top-200 rankings in singles as she jumped 32 places to reach a career-best 200 in the WTA chart.
The 20-year-old Delhi girl, backed by Mahesh Bhupathi, has been in good form in the past few weeks, winning her maiden ITF singles title in Hong Kong and making the semifinals in two others in China.
In April, the country's top singles player Ankita had broken into the top-200 and is now ranked 195 (-4).
Before these two girls, Sania Mirza, Nirupama Vaidyanathan, Shikha Uberoi and Sunitha Rao had made it to top-200.
While Sania, winner of six Grand Slam titles in doubles, touched a career-high of 27 in singles in 2007, Nirupama's best rank was 134 in 1997.
Shikha's highest ranking was 122 and Sunita reached 144.
Both these players lived in the US and had US passport although on Tour they represented India.
Rutuja Bhosale was the next best Indian at number 388, a gain of 11 places.
In the men's singles, Yuki Bhambri was unchanged at 86 while Ramkumar Ramanathan climbed four places to a career-best 111.
In the doubles, Rohan Bopanna (27), Divij Sharan (38), Leander Paes (80) and Purav Raja (83) were unchanged.
Jeeevan Nedunchezhiyan dropped two rungs to 89 while N Siram Balaji (96) and Vishnu Vardhan (98) also maintained their top-100 ranking.