Karman Kaur Thandi today became only the sixth Indian woman tennis player to crack the top-200 rankings in singles, jumping 32 places in the WTA chart.
Karman is now ranked exactly 200 in the WTA list.
The 20-year-old Delhi girl, backed by Mahesh Bhupathi, has been in good form in the past few weeks, winning her maiden ITF singles title in Hong Kong and making the semi-finals in two others in China.
In April, the country's top singles player Ankita Raina had broken into the top-200 and is now ranked 195 (-4).
Before these two girls, Sania Mirza, Nirupama Vaidyanathan, Shikha Uberoi and Sunitha Rao had made it to the top-200.
While Sania, winner of six Grand Slam titles in doubles, touched a career-high of 27 in singles in 2007, Nirupama's best rank was 134 in 1997.
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Shikha's highest ranking was 122 and Sunita reached 144. Both these players were US citizens even though they represented India on tour.
"I am happy to climb to top-200. Step by step, I will try to reach my goal of getting into top-150 by the year-end," Karman, who celebrated the moment by indulging in some shopping, told PTI.
In her last three tournaments, Karman won her maiden ITF singles title in Hong Kong and reached semi-final in two others in China.
Asked if she played differently to get consistency, Karman said:"The matches I played before were tight ones and they could have gone either way. I lost those matches but learnt from them."
"In the matches, I played recently, I kept my intensity on every point and stepping it up both mentally and and game wise. I stayed solid with my game both physically and mentally."
Commenting on the development, Bhupathi told PTI,"It is a stepping stone. She works very hard and it's good to see her moving in the right direction."