Indian shuttlers make solid start in Singapore Open

Indians made a solid start to their campaign in the Singapore Open badminton tournament, the trio of Saina Nehwal, Arvind Bhat and Anup Sridhar winning their qualifying openers of the Super Series event.

National champion Saina Nehwal opened the proceedings, beating Jie Yao of The Netherlands 21-19, 19-21, 21-13 in a fiercely contested match that lasted 52 minutes.

Nehwal next takes on Juan Gu of Singapore, who thumped sixth seed Pui Yin Yip of Hong Kong 21-11, 21-12 in less than 30 minutes.

Sridhar then continued the winning momentum for the Indians and defeated Chinese Taipei's Yu Hsin Hsieh 22-20, 19-21, 21-11 to set up a second round clash with Sairul Amar Ayob of Malaysia on Thursday.

Arvind, however, had to fight from a game down to get the better of fifth seed Przemyslaw Wacha of Poland 13-21, 21-13, 21-14 after 39 minutes.

He next faces Joachim Persson of Denmark, who thrashed Eric Pang of The Netherlands 21-14, 21-18.

However, Nehwal could not replicate her singles' form in doubles and the Indian and her Canadian partner Anna Rice went down 18-21, 13-21 to eighth seeded Dane pair of Kamilla Rytter Juhl and Lena Frier Kristiansen.