Gilis and Watanabe Up to Career High Rankings

Belgium’s Nele Gilis and Japan’s Satomi Watanabe have risen to career best rankings of World No.8 and World No.18, respectively, in the latest PSA World Tour Rankings for the week commencing Monday 22 May.

Both Gilis and Watanabe enjoyed spectacular runs in the Silver-level Manchester Open, which concluded yesterday.

Gilis reached her first ever Silver final after beating Yathreb Adel, defending champion and top seed Joelle King, and Watanabe, before eventually falling to World No.6 Nour El Tayeb in the final.

Watanabe, meanwhile, reached her first ever Silver semi final after downing Hana Moataz, No.4 seed and last year’s runner up Sarah-Jane Perry, and No.8 seed Tesni Evans.

Elsewhere, Nour El Sherbini of Egypt remains top, while Malaysia’s Sivasangari Subramaniam continued her comeback by reaching the quarter final of the Manchester Open and climbing seven places to World No.33.

The biggest mover on the tour this week was New Zealand’s Anabel Romero Gemmell, who climbed 45 places from 394 to 349 after reaching the quarter final of the PSA Challenger Tour 5-level Auckland/Oceania Open.