On a day star shuttler Lakshya Sen made a first-round exit, double Olympic medalist PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth began with easy wins to advance into the pre-quarter finals of the Asia Badminton Championship, here on Wednesday.
Commonwealth Games bronze medal-winning women’s doubles pair Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand also made it to the last-16.
Fresh from finishing runner-up at the Madrid Spain Masters, former world champion Sindhu defeated WenChi Hsu 21-15, 22-20 in a 46-minute affair in the women’s singles.
Sindhu will face World No 9 Han Yue of China in the pre-quarters.
Former World Championship silver medalist Srikanth took 25 minutes to see off his first-round opponent Adnan Ebrahim 21-13, 21-8. He will face world No 5 Kodai Naraoka in the men’s singles last-16.
Treesa and Gayatri roared back from a game down to defeat Indonesia’s Lanny Tria Mayasari and Ribka Sugiarto 17-21, 21-17, 21-18.
The mixed doubles pair of Rohan Kapoor and Sikki Reddy also won their opening round match against Chan Peng Soon and Cheah Yee See of Malaysia 21-12, 21-16.
Commonwealth Games gold medalist Sen, who took a short break to focus on his mental and physical health, was eliminated by world No. 7 Loh Kean Yew in a 7-21, 21-23 loss. Having plummeted to 24th spot in the BWF rankings, Sen got a tough draw as he was pitted against former world champion and world No 7.
Up against world number one Akane Yamaguchi, promising Malavika Bansod stretched the star player before going down 23-25, 19-21 in a 46-minute battle.
