Manav Thakkar and Manush Shah climbed to world No. 2 in the latest ITTF men’s doubles rankings, bettering their own record for the highest position achieved by an Indian table tennis player or pair.
The Indian table tennis pair gained a spot in the rankings released on Monday after rising to world No. 3 last week. The duo surpassed the previous benchmark set by the women’s doubles pairing of Archana Kamath and Manika Batra, who reached world No. 4 in 2022.
The People’s Republic of China’s Lin Shidong and Huang Youzheng, with 5160 points, top the rankings ahead of Manav Thakkar and Manush Shah, who are at 3390 points.
Alexis and Felix Lebrun, both part of France’s bronze-medal-winning men’s team at the Paris 2024 Olympics, occupied the No. 2 spot last week but fell to fifth, opening up the slot for the Indians.
Manav Thakkar and Manush Shah, mentored by Indian table tennis legend Sharath Kamal, have produced a string of strong performances over the past year.
They reached the semi-finals at the 2026 Singapore Smash, the final at the 2025 WTT Star Contender Foz do Iguaçu and won the title at the 2026 WTT Contender Lagos.
The pair is also part of India’s Asian Games 2026 table tennis team.
At the previous Asian Games in Hangzhou, Thakkar and Shah missed a medal after losing the men’s doubles quarter-finals to the Republic of Korea’s then world No. 1 pair of Jang Woo-jin and Lim Jong-hoon.
The rankings boost comes just over two months before the Asian Games 2026, scheduled to be held in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, from September 19 to October 4, with India currently having top-10-ranked pairs in all three doubles disciplines.
Diya Chitale and Manush Shah are ranked world No. 5 in mixed doubles, while Diya Chitale and Yashaswini Ghorpade occupy world No. 10 in the women’s doubles rankings.
In the singles rankings, Manav Thakkar is India’s highest-ranked men’s player at world No. 38, with Manush Shah two places behind at world No. 40.
Manika Batra remains India’s highest-ranked women’s singles player at world No. 51. However, the former Commonwealth Games champion has been named among India’s reserves for the 2026 Asian Games.
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