Indian shuttlers had a relatively good day in office as the women's doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa and the men's team of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy progressed to the second round of Indonesia Open Super Series Premier badminton tournament, here today.
The star Indian pair of Jwala and Ashwini, the winners of 2010 Commonwealth Games and 2011 World Championship bronze-medallists, had to play out of their skin to prevail over the Indonesian pair of Febriana Dwipuji Kusuma and Ribka Sugiarto in a tough three-setter of the USD 900,000 tournament.
Jwala and Ashwini fought hard for exactly 39 minutes to register a 21-7 20-22 21-10 win over their rivals in the opening round. They will next play the Chinese combination of Yaqiong Huang and Jinhua Tang.
It, however, turned out to be an easy outing for the men's doubles duo of Manu and Sumeeth Reddy as they defeated Peter Gabriel Magnaye and Alvin Morada of Philippines 21-13 21-16 to progress to the second round.
A tough encounter awaits Manu and Sumeeth in the next round as they play sixth seeds Sung Hyun Ko and Baek Cheol Shin of Korea.
However, it was curtains for young Sameer Verma as he crashed out in the opening round of the men's singles event.
Up against two-time Olympic silver-medallist and second seed Lee Chong Wei, Sameer started brightly before running out of steam. This allowed the Malaysian to take control of the proceedings to register a comfortable 21-11 21-13 win.
With Sameer's exit, the Indian challenge came to an end in the men's singles event.
Three-time champion and World No. 8 Saina Nehwal, however, is still in the fray and will take on Indonesian Fitriani Fitriani in the second round of the women's singles competition.
Eighth seed Saina, who is looking for her maiden title this season, defeated World No. 23 Pai Yu Po of Chinese Taipei 21-11 19-21 21-15 in her opening match yesterday.
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Meanwhile, B Sai Praneeth entered the quarterfinals of the men's singles after getting the better of Wong Wing Ki Vincent 21-15 21-17.
Praneeth took just 43 minutes to down fifth seed shuttler from Hong Kong.
The Indian will next take on Zhao Jun Peng of China.
