Indian shuttlers had a mixed day at the Indonesian Open badminton tournament on Wednesday, with three players making it to the second round and an equal number crashing out of the event, being held at Jakarta.
While former All England champion Pullela Gopichand, national champion Abhinn Shyam Gupta and B R Meenakhi comfortably reached the round of 32, southpaw Nikhil Kanetkar, national champion Aparna Popat and Trupti Murgunde were forced to bite the dust.
Gopichand, who had to qualify for the main draw due to his low ranking following a long injury lay-off, had no problem while defeating Englishman Aamir Ghaffar 15-8 ,15-7. National champion Gupta got the better of Antti Vitikko of Finland 15-12, 15-9.
The Hyderabad-based Gopichand will now take on fourth seed Sony Dwi Kuncoro of Indonesia while Gupta will face 14th seed Malaysian M Roslin Hashim.
But Kanetkar, the top-ranked Indian, had no answer to the attacking game of Chinese qualifier Yungyong Wu as he lost in straight games 8-15, 9-15.
In the women's section, Meenakshi kept Indian hopes alive amidst defeats of her teammates. She thrashed local girl Priyanti Cahyaning 11-4, 11-3 and runs into fourth seed Chen Wang of Hong Kong in the match for a pre-quarter-final berth.
Meanwhile, 33rd-ranked Popat was outclassed by 88th-ranked qualifier Chia Chi Huang of Chinese Taipei, losing the tie in straight games 7-11, 12-13.
In the other tie, Murgunde was no match to world number 2 Ruina Gong as she surrendered meekly 6-11, 1-11.
