Tokyo, Sept. 9 : World number one shuttler Saina Nehwal produced a dominant performance on Wednesday as she battled past Busanan Ongbumrungpan in straight sets to reach the second round of the Japan Open Superseries in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Nehwal, who is seeded second in the tournament, claimed a 21-14, 22-20 win over her Thai opponent in the opening round contest that lasted 42 minutes.
Meanwhile, Indian tennis ace Parupalli Kashyap progressed through to the second round after his Japanese opponent Takuma Ueda retired midway at 3-2 in the opening round of the men’s singles event.
However, the rest of the Indian contingent endured a disappointing outing as two-time bronze medallist at world championship PV Sindhu went down 13-21, 21-17, 11-21 against Japanese shuttler Minatsu Mitani in the first round.
Commonwealth silver-medallist pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa produced a valiant show before going down 20-22 21-18 13-21 to eighth seeds Zhao Yunlei and Zhong Qianxin of China. (ANI)