Top Indian shuttlers Saina Nehwal, Kidambi Srikanth and B Sai Praneeth advanced to the second round of the French Open Badminton with straight-game wins in Paris on Wednesday. But it was curtains for Sameer Verma.
Saina, who finished runner-up in the Denmark Open last week, outclassed Japan’s Saena Kawakami 21-11, 21-11 in the women’s singles, while defending champion Srikanth beat Hong Kong’s Wong Wing Ki Vincent 21-19, 21-13 in the men’s singles match in the opening round.
Praneeth defeated Brazilian Ygor Coelho 21-13, 21-17.
World No. 10 Saina will face either 2017 world champion Nozomi Okuhara of Japan or Spain’s Beatriz Corrales next.
Fifth-seeded Srikanth will meet Korean Lee Dong Keun.
Sameer, went down fighting 21-16, 17-21, 15-21 to Asian Games gold medallist Jonatan Christie of Indonesia.
Men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy defeated Korean duo of Min Hyuk Kang and Kim Won Ho 21-18, 21-17.
They will square off against either Chinese third seeds Liu Cheng and Zhang Nan or Danish combination of Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen.
Indian mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa gave their everything before going down narrowly 22-24, 21-18, 19-21 to husband-wife combination of Chris Adcock and Gabrielle Adcock from England.