London Olympics quarter-finalist Parupalli Kashyap and rising Indian woman shuttler P V Sindhu won their respective first round matches in the men's and women's singles event in the Badminton Asia Championship in Taipei on Wednesday.
Seeded fourth at the tournament, Kashyap came from a game down to beat Ji Hoon Hong of South Korea 18-21, 21-15, 22-20. He took an hour and nine minutes to complete the job.
The world No.7 Indian will take on local player, Han Chou Chu in the second round.
Sai Praneeth B also made the second round after beating Mohamed Ajfan Rasheed 21-10, 21-12 in only 22 minutes.
In women's singles, Sindhu registered a comfortable 21-18, 21-19 win over Tsz Ka Chan of Hong Kong in just over half an hour. Sindhu will face a tough challenge in round two where she is pitted against World No. 6 Wang Shixian.
Meanwhile, three Indian pairs in men's doubles event lost their respective first round matches.
While Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Akshay Dewalkar lost to Hung Ling Chen and Chia Pin Lu of Taipei 21-17, 21-17 in 31 minutes, the duo of Tarun Kona and Arun Vishnu fought hard before going down 24-22, 19-21, 16-21 to the Vietnamese pair of Bao Duc Duong and Hoang Nam Nguyen in 46 minutes.
In another tie, seventh seeded Chinese pair of Xiaolong Liu and Zihan Qiu took only 26 minutes to get the better of India's Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy B, 21-18, 21-9.
The women's doubles category saw mixed fortunes for the Indian shuttlers as Pradnya Gadre and Ashwini Ponnappa took just 29 minutes to get the better of Pei Rong Wang and Kuo Yu Wen, 21-12, 30-29.
But the combo of Aparna Balan and Siki Reddy N lost to Hsiao Huan Chen and Chia Wen Lai 16-21, 17-21 in 29 minutes.
India's mixed doubles duo of Tarun Kona and Ashwini Ponnappa also lost their opening round tie against Liu Yi and Lei Yao 14-21, 21-16, 18-21 in 47 minutes.
Photographs: Julian Finney/Getty Images
