Young Indian shuttler Ashmita Chaliha recorded the first upset of the India Open when she stunned fifth seed Evgeniya Kosetskaya in the women’s singles first round here on Tuesday.

Top seed PV Sindhu sailed into the second round of the tournament cruising past compatriot Sri Krishna Priya Kudaravalli 21-5, 21-16.

Reigning world champion Loh Kean Yew was stretched to three games while home favourite Kidambi Srikanth registered a convincing win in their respective men’s singles first round matches of the World Tour 500 tournament series event.

Loh defeated Canada’s Xiaodong Sheng 16-21, 21-4, 21-13 while Srikanth packed off former junior world No. 1 Siril Verma 21-17, 21-10.

However, it was curtains for Chirag Sen as he lost 8-21, 7-21 to Soong Joo Ven of Malaysia.

Earlier in the day, unseeded Chaliha took just 31 minutes to get the better of world No.28 Russian 24-22, 21-16. In her opener, Chaliha began strongly by employing her down-the-line smashes to open up an 11-5 lead. However, the Indian made a lot of errors after the break and Kosetsyaka pounced on the opportunity to first level the score at 14-14 and then fight back from 16-19 to earn her first game point.

But the girl from Guwahati, who had lost to the Russian in their earlier contest back in 2019, managed to regroup and forced her opponent to make an unforced error and then saved two more game points before clinching the opener with a smash.

The second game followed a similar trajectory as Chaliha opened up an 11-4 lead, only for the Russian to close in at 19-16. However, the Indian was more in control and finished off the match in 31 minutes.

“I haven’t played a lot of matches in the last few years. So, I was nervous and that affected me midway in the opening game. But once I won the first game, I was more confident and so I was relaxed in the second game,” Chaliha said after the match.

“It is a big event and I was looking forward to playing the Russian but I played safe and it helped to pull out the match. This was one of my biggest wins. I played her before and had lost to her in straight games. So it was my biggest win,” she told reporters in a virtual press conference.

Chaliha will next face France’s Yaelle Hoyaux, who defeated India’s Riya Mookerjee 14-21, 13-21. Srikanth will face Denmark’s Kim Brunn, who defeated India’s Subhankar Dey 21-19, 18-21, 21-14.