Hyderabad doubles pair edges toward century mark
Arjun Reddy Pochana and Achutaditya Rao are racking up results for Telangana — the official BWF top‑100 line is still to be drawn, but the pair is in the mix and on court everywhere that matters.
The pair’s results are on record; the official top-100 line remains to be confirmed.
Two Hyderabad shuttlers are doing the unfashionable thing in Indian sport: quietly winning matches abroad and turning up in bigger draws the next month. POCHANA Arjun Reddy and DODDAVARAPU Achutaditya Rao have been entered together in BWF events from Havana to Calgary this season, with state code TS on the paperwork and Hyderabad as home base.
What is on the record: four international medals in late 2025 — gold in Mexico, silvers in Trinidad & Tobago and Zambia, and bronze in South Africa — reported at the time, plus main-draw appearances this year including the Australian Open, where they lost 21–15, 21–15 to Australia’s Igawa/Ooi on day one. Their names also show up on BWF-generated entry lists for the Cuba International Series and the Canada Open Super 300, which is where serious pairs go to find out how serious they are.
What is still a claim, not a confirmed line on the BWF table: that they have broken into the men’s doubles world top 100, that they are the first Telangana men’s pair to do it, and that there’s a fifth medal from Peru and a direct entry to Korea Masters. One report says so. The official, dated BWF ranking sheet that would settle it is not in the public trail we could find.
For Telangana, the substance is already useful: a doubles pair from here training in Kondapur, stacking results, and making World Tour starts. For Delhi’s sport bosses who prefer ribbon‑cutting to ranking math — and for the BJP’s habit of taking credit before the points are counted — the ask is simple: fund the travel and let the ranking speak for itself. The scoreboard, not a slogan, will decide whether “top 100” is a headline or a line they have to answer for.