Saina wins; Sridhar, Aditi fall on Day One

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Upset victories were the order of the day as a handful of seeded players bit the dust on the opening day of the Yonex-Sunrise Indian Open Grand Prix Gold 2010 badminton championship at the Nehru indoor stadium on Wednesday.

India No.1 and title favourite Saina Nehwal, as expected, stormed into the second round with an easy 21-7, 21-10 victory over Sri Lankan Jayasinghe Thilini.
Saina had a perfect start as she raced to a 6-2 lead and in no time she was serving for the game at 20-4. Saina was spot on with her drop shots, forehand as well as backhands, while Thilini looked circumspect at the net. The top seed pocketed the first game with a ferocious forehand smash.
Saina grew in confidence as she kept punishing Thilini with inch-perfect placements. “The scores suggest that it wasn’t tough, but I feel she played well in patches. It could have been a lot easier had I not committed a few errors. Being the first match of the tournament, I was a bit slow off the blocks. I would like to buckle up fast,” noted Saina.
Earlier, men’s top-seed Chetan Anand hardly broke a sweat to pack-off compatriot Mohit Kamat 21-8, 21-8.
Chetan, coming back from an injury, toyed with his opponent, jumping to a solid 10-point lead in both games.
It was, however, curtains for No. 5 seed Indian Anup Sridhar, who went down to the pint-sized Indonesian Yunus Alamsyah.
India’s No. 3 seed Aditi Mutatkar could not mount a comeback as she lost to the unseeded Linda Weni Fanetri of Indonesia 14-21, 21-18, 11-21. Maja Tvrdy (Slovakia, 4), Fu-Sin Mingtian (Singapore, 5) Trupti Murgunde (India, 7) were the other seeded players to bow out.
Other important results: Singles: Men: Jayaram Ajay (8, Ind) bt H.S. Prannoy 21-16, 9-21, 21-8; Pawar Anand (6, Ind) bt Chopda Sagar (Ind) 21-17, 7-1 (retd); Aravind Bhat (4, Ind) bt Rohan Castelino (Ind) 21-14, 21-15; P. Kashyap (3, Ind) bt Dinesh Thirupati (Ind) 21-11, 21-12; Mohd. Hashim Hafiz (2, Mal) bt Ajith Wijetilak (Ind) 21-12, 21-8; R.M.V. Guru Sai Dutt (7, Ind) bt Anurag Sharma 21-8, 21-9; M.R. Manikandan (Ind) bt Ashish Sharma (Ind) 21-11, 21-9.
Women: Gokhale Sayali (Ind, 6) bt Sahasrabudhe Sampada 21-7, 21-11; Chen Jiayuan (Sing, 8) bt Rane Saili (Ind) 17-21, 21-14, 21-15; Juan Gu (Sing) bt Murgunde Trupti (7, Ind) 21-15, 21-15; Choo Wong Mew (2, Mal) bt Dhainje Mudra (Ind) 21-13 21-15; P.C. Thulasi (Ind) bt Maja Tvrdy (4, Slo) 17-21, 21-9, 21-10; Yuswandari Aprilia (Indo) bt Fu Mingtian (5, Sing) 21-13, 22-20; Weni Fanetri Linda (Indo) bt Aditi Mutatkar (3, Ind) 21-14, 18-21, 21-11.