Saina Nehwal rises to eight

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April 02, 2009 15:47 IST

Ace shuttler Saina Nehwal has jumped one place to the eighth spot, while a place in the finals of the Indian Open Super Series catapulted the mixed doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and V Diju to the elite top 10 bracket.

Jwala and Diju put up a stupendous show at the Indian Open Grand Prix Gold and reached the finals of the event before going down to Flandy Limpele and Vita Marissa of Indonesia. However, the Indian duo's performance was good enough to crack the top 10.

"I am very happy. I personally never expected to break into the top 10 so soon. From now onwards we would look to win some Super Series events and if we can do that we would definitely zoom further up, may be seven or eight," Diju said. 

Elated at the news, Jwala said they would look for a top five berth by the year end. 

"We would definitely look to crack the top five now," said Jwala, who along with Diju won three tournaments last year -- the Bulgaria Open Grand Prix, Bitburger Grand Prix Open and the Nepal International Series. 

This year the Indian duo reached the semi-finals of Korea Super Series and quarter-finals of German Open Grand Prix. 

The Indian pair will now look to repeat their feat in the forthcoming Asian Badminton Championship starting on April 6 in Korea.

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