Sridhar, Pawar in NZ Open pre-quarters

Anup Sridhar and Anand Pawar were among four Indians advancing to the pre-quarter-finals of the New Zealand Open Grand Prix badminton tournament in Auckland on Tuesday.

Sixth seed Sridhar, who received a first round bye, beat New Zealand's Joe Wu 21-18, 21-16 in the second round to set up a final-16 clash with Wing Ki Wong of Hong Kong.

Wong beat Malaysian Zulfadli Zulkifli 21-12, 21-12.

Seventh seed Pawar, who also got a bye in first round, defeated James Eunson of New Zealand and will now take on Indonesian Andreas Adityawarman in the third round.

Aditya Prakash outlasted Kiwi Kevin Dennerly-Minturn, winning 21-12, 21-18, and then overcame a stiff challenges from Yogendran Krishnan before beating the Malaysian 21-16, 17-21, 21-19.

He faces Indonesian Yoga Pratama on Wednesday.

RMV Gurusai Datt brushed aside Kiwi Leck S Tham 21-5, 21-6 and Simon Maunoury of France 21-4, 21-10 in first and second rounds respectively to reach the pre-quarter-finals.

Datt will now face top seed Yan Kit Chan of Hong Kong.

Among other Indian men, Aditya Elango got the better of Kiwi Bjorn Seguin 19-21, 21-16, 21-11 in the first round before going down to eighth seed Mathieu Lo Ying Ping of France 10-21,l 8-21 in a 20-minute encounter.

Meanwhile, Abhimanyu Singh and Arundhati Pantawane gave walk-overs to Kiwis Thomas Ellis and Sheena Kwan in the men's and women's singles respectively.