Former National champion Chetan Anand and Nikhil Kanetkar registered contrasting victories to move into the second round of the German Open badminton championship.
National women's champion Aparna Popat also made it to the second round while former All England champion Pullela Gopichand, reigning national champion Anup Sridhar, Arvind Bhat and Abhinn Shyam Gupta were shown the door on Tuesday night at the Mulheim an der Ruhr.
Anand had to work hard through the three games before getting the better of Jan Vondra of Czech Republic 15-10, 10-15, 15-3 while Kanetar had an easy outing against Japanese qualifier Shinya Ohtsuka, whom he beat 15-13, 15-9.
Anand will now face eighth seed Dicky Palyama of Netherlands while Kanetkar takes on 10th seed Anders Boesen of Denmark in the round of 16.
In the women's section, Popat defeated Kati Tolmoff of Estonia 11-4, 13-11 to set up a second round clash with sixth seed Jae Youn Jun of Korea.
The other Indians in the fray failed to cross the first round hurdle with only Arvind Bhat putting up a brave fight before going down to Conrad Hueckstaedt of Germany 16-17, 15-12, 5-15.
Gopichand went down to Tsuen Seng Lee of Malaysia 15-7, 15-4 while 14th seed Mohammad Hafiz Hashim thrashed Sridhar 15-5, 15-7 in another Indo-Malaysian encounter.
