Chetan Anand in main draw of Singapore Open

Former national champion Chetan Anand registered a straight games victory over Chih Hao Chen of Chinese Taipei to qualify for the main draw of the Singapore Open badminton championship.

Anand, ranked 97, thrashed Chen 15-5, 15-2 in just 23 minutes to set up a first round clash with Sho Sasaki of Japan in the five-star event at the Singapore Indoor stadium.

The Indian had earlier registered a hard-fought win over local boy Wiempie Mahardi 15-12, 17-16 in the opening qualifying round.

However, Trupti Murgunde, in women's singles, and the men's doubles pair of V Diju and Jaseel Ismail failed to make the grade as they lost in the qualifying rounds.

Murgunde went down to Chinese Taipei's Chia-Hsin Huang 9-11, 7-11 while Diju and Ismail lost to Noriyasu Hirataand Hajime Komiyama 10-15, 7-15.

National champion Anup Sridhar, Abhinn Shyam Gupta and Nikhil Kanetkar, along with women's national champion Aparna Popat, begin their campaign on Wednesday.

While Sridhar will take on qualifier Tien Minh Nguyen of Vietnam, Gupta faces off with top seed and world No 1 Lin Dan of China in the opening round.

Kanetkar will begin his campaign against Peter Mikkelson of Denmark.

Popat, coming back from a six-week break after suffering from acute vertigo, will take on Simone Prutsch of Austria in the opening round.

Sanave Thomas and Rupesh Kumar will face world No 3 Lars Paaske and Jonas Rasmussen of Denmark in the men's doubles first round while Shruti Kurian and Jwala Gutta will meet eighth seeds Eei Hui Chin and Pei Tty Wong of Malaysia.