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The top Indian shuttlers got off to a winning start at the Swiss Open 2018 with Sameer Verma and Sourabh Verma both winning their opening round matches to progress into the second round of this BWF World Tour Super 300 tournament in Basel, Switzerland on Wednesday. 2014 Commonwealth Games bronze medallist RMV Gurusaidutt, who is a qualifier at this tournament, too joined them in the second round with an upset victory.
Second seeded Sameer staved off a tough challenge in the first game and then cruised through the second to notch up a 22-20, 21-10 win over France’s World No. 73 Thomas Rouxel in 36 minutes.
The Syed Modi International champion next takes on the 58th ranked Yu Igarashi of Japan for a place in the quarter-finals.
Sameer’s elder brother, Sourabh too did not drop a game in his 21-11, 21-18 win over Israel’s Misha Zilberman. Sourabh will next meet Gurusaidutt in what would be a mouth-watering all-Indian clash. The latter ousted the third seeded Ygor Coelho of Brazil 21-16, 21-11 in his first round match.
Abhishek Yelegar could not produce much resistance against the top seed Rajiv Ouseph and went down 14-21, 13-21.
Sai Uttejitha wins in women's singles
In women’s singles, 19-year-old Sai Uttejitha Rao Chukka beat Germany’s Yvonne Li 25-23, 21-16 to be the only Indian to make it through to Round 2 in this category. Vaishnavi Reddy Jakka lost 19-21, 17-21 to Denmark’s Julie Dawall Jakobsen and Sri Krishna Priya Kudaravalli was defeated 11-21, 15-21 by Indonesia’s Lyanny Alessandra Mainaky.
Anura Prabhudesai, who triumphed at the All-India Senior Ranking Tournament last Sunday, surrendered 12-21, 12-21 to the top seed Sayaka Takahashi. Riya Mukherjee squandered a one-game lead to lose 21-13, 12-21, 17-21 to the fourth seed Evgeniya Kosetskaya.
In men’s doubles, Arjun MR and Shlok Ramchandran showed their fighting skills in their 21-17, 14-21, 21-15 win over Chinese Taipei’s Po Li-Wei and Yang Ming-Tse. Kapil Chaudhary and Brijesh Yadav were outclassed 8-21, 15-21 by the fourth seeds Jones Ralfy Jansen and Josche Zurwonne.
