India ace Kidambi Srikanth staved off a stiff challenge from France's Christo Popov to progress to the men's singles second round at the Indonesia Masters Super 750 badminton tournament in Bali on Wednesday.
Former World No 1 Srikanth, who had claimed the Indonesia Open Super Series premier in 2017 at Jakarta, saw off World No 71 Christo 21-18, 15-21, 21-16 in his opening match that lasted an hour and 15 minutes.
The Indian, currently ranked 15th, is likely to face Indonesia's sixth seed Jonatan Christie next.
In mixed doubles, the pairing of Dhruv Kapila and N Sikki Reddy notched up a stunning 21-11, 22-20 win over second seeds and world no 5 Indonesian duo of Praveen Jordan and Melati Daeva Oktavianti to also advance to the second round.
However, it was curtains for former Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap after he went down 10-21 19-21 to Denmark's Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus.
Two-time Olympic medallist P V Sindhu and Lakshya Sen had reached the second round on Tuesday.
