Indian ace Sania Nehwal started her Indonesia Open Superseries campaign with a straight-set victory over world number nine Porntip Buranaprasertsuk of Thailand. The three-time winner will now face Kirsty Gilmour of Scotland in the pre-quarterfinals on Thursday.
The London Olympics bronze medallist ousted Buranaprasertsuk 21-15, 21-10 in her first round encounter and registered her seventh victory over the Thai opponent in eight meetings.
Gilmour, on the other hand, registered a hard fought win over her Japanese opponent Sayaka Takahashi 21-19, 19-21, 22-20. This will be the third meeting between these two, and the Indian badminton ace has won both the previous outings against the Scot.
It is going to be a colossal task for the world number 17 Gilmour to pull off an upset against three-time winner Saina, who came into the tournament on the back of some fine performances in the Uber Cup. The 24-year-old led India to the semifinals of the Uber Cup as the team clinched the bronze medal in the tournament for the first time.
Saina is the only Indian singles player left in the competition as all her counterparts PV Sindhu, K Srikanth and Parupalli Kashyap have crashed out. This is the second consecutive first round exit for the Indian men.
Doubles ace Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa are still in the tournament and will face Anggia Shitta Awanda and Della Destiara Haris of Indonesia in the second round next.
The Commonwealth gold medal winners defeated Pia Zebadiah Bernadeth and Rizki Amelia Pradipta in a hard fought encounter 13-21, 22-20, 21-11 in 49 minutes.
However, it was a tough opening match for world number 10 Sindhu, who faced first round defeat at the hands of Chinese Olympic silver medallist Yihan Wang 24-26 17-21 in just 47 minutes.
Meanwhile, Kashyap failed to cross the opening hurdle and went down against world number four Japanese Kenichi Tago 21-19, 8-21, 22-24. He could not capitalise on the one game advantage over the Japanese and lost two games in a row to crash out of the tournament.
Srikanth, on the other hand, faced upset at the hands of world number 37 Chen Yuekun of China and lost 21-12, 17-21, 21-16. The Indian, after losing the opening game, rallied back to level the match but his Chinese counterpart held on to clinch the tie.
Mixed doubles pair Tarun Kona and Ashwini Ponnappa also went down against German duo Peter Kaesbauer and Isabel Herttrich 19-21, 21-14, 21-19. While Sourabh Varma and HS Prannoy failed to qualify for the main round.
Where to Watch Live
The day's play is scheduled for an 11:30 am IST (3:30 am GMT) start. The match between Saina Nehwal and Kristy Gilmour will start at 3:30 pm IST (10:00 am GMT) start, with live coverage on Star Sports 2 in India. The matches can be watched via live streaming option HERE, or see the live scores HERE.
