India ace Saina Nehwal made a positive start to the new season, edging past China's Chen Yufei in a thrilling opening round match at the USD 350,000 Indonesia Masters World Tour Super 500 tournament, here today.
London Olympics bronze medallist Saina, who is coming back from an ankle injury, dug deep into her reservoir to eke out a 22-24 21-15 21-14 win over world no. 7 Chen in a women singles match that lasted an hour and nine minutes here.
Saina will face China's Chen Xiaoxin in the next round tomorrow.
Young men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also crossed the opening hurdle after beating eighth seeded Japanese pair of Takuto Inque and Yuki Kaneko 21-15 21-17 to set up a clash with Chinese Taipei's Liao Min Chun and Su Ching Heng in the second round.
Earlier, Sameer Verma, who recently recovered from a shoulder injury, suffered a 16-21 21-12 10-21 loss to Japan's Kazumasa Sakai in a men's singles match.
Men's doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy also lost 18-21 21-16 16-21 to Lu Ching Yao and Yang Po Han to bow out of the tournament.
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