Saina Nehwal has reached the pinnacle of her badminton career. The 20- year- old player on Thursday became the world No. 2 in the latest rankings issued by the Badminton World Federation (BWF).

With 64791.26 points, the Hyderabadi is now ranked next only to Chinese Wang Yihan (74308.91) points.

“I am very happy to achieve the world No.2 so early in my career. The last three wins have really helped me. It is a great feeling but I feel my priority would still be to win more tournaments for India rather than focusing on rankings,” Saina said.

Saina said, “I want to make one thing clear: I was ranked sixth for a major part of the year. Then I became No. 3 and now No. 2. That is all fine. But my real focus is winning the major tournaments.” She once again repeated that the World Championships was her main target.” That is without a doubt my biggest challenge.

Another factor which is to be kept in mind is that with practically no tournament between now and the World Championships, the Indian would go into the world’s premier tournament as the second seed. “With no major tournaments between now and the World Championships, Saina is most certainly going to the event as the second seed,” said her coach Gopi Chand.

Saina’s father Harvir Singh was the first one to break the news to her. “I feel very happy for her. She has worked very hard and fully deserves the world No. 2 slot,” he said.