The Indian badminton women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand, on Tuesday, advanced to the second round of the 2024 Swiss Open Super 300 in Basel.
Treesa and Gayatri, who had suffered an opening round exit at the prestigious All England Open last week, cruised past Annie Xu and Kerry Xu of the United States 21-15, 21-12.
The Indians, ranked 26th in the world, raced to a 9-0 lead early in the opening game before the American pair fought back to reduce the deficit to 5-11 at the mid-game interval.
The Indians were tested throughout match but eventually managed to emerge out on top in just under 40 minutes.
Meanwhile, three other Indian doubles pair bowed out of contention in the opening round on Tuesday.
The pair of Ashwini Bhat and Shikha Gautam lost out 13-21, 21-16, 14-21 to the fourth seeds from Hong Kong Yeung Nga Ting and Yeung Pui Lam, while Simran Singhi and Ritika Thaker, who were promoted from the reserves to main draw, went down against Lanny Tria Mayasari and Ribka Sugiarto 17-21, 7-21 in 33 minutes.
The pair of Rutaparna Panda and Swetaparna Panda too lost out following a tame 4-21, 6-21 loss to top seeds Apriyani Rahayu and Siti Fadia Silva Ramadhanti of Indonesia.
Sikki-Sumeeth enter main draw
Earlier in the day, the Indian mixed doubles pair of Sikki Reddy and Sumeeth Reddy booked their slot in the main draw with a win in their qualification round.
Sikki-Sumeeth defeated Davi Silva and Samia Lima of Brazil 21-12, 17-21 in just 28 minutes to advance to the main draw.
The men’s doubles pairing of Hariharan Amsakarunan and Ruban Kumar Rethinasabapathi also moved to the main draw following a 21-17, 21-15 straight games victory over France’s Natan Begga and Baptiste Labarthe in the qualification match.
Meanwhile, singles shuttlers veteran Sameer Verma and the young Sathish Karunakaran faced heartbreaks in the qualification rounds.
While Verma went down to Alwi Farhan 18-21, 12-21 after winning his qualification match in three games against Brazil’s Ygor Coelho, Karunakaran lost to South Korea’s Jeon Hyeok Jin 17-21, 21-17, 15-21 in the final round which lasted 66 minutes.
Karunakaran had earlier defeated El Salvador’s Uriel Francisco Canjura Artiga 18-21, 12-21.
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