Basel: Ace Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal started her Swiss Open Grand Prix title defence on a sweet note as she defeated Japan's Sayaka Sato in straight-games in the first round played on Wednesday at Basel, here.
The World number four India beat the Japanese player 21-13, 21-8 in a match that lasted for just three minutes more than half an hour.
Others Indians in the fray like Sourabh Sharma, Ajay Jayaram and P Kashyap also cruised into the second round of the tournament.
Sourabh defeated Wing Ki Wong of Hong Kong 22-20 20-22 21-19, while Jayaram thrashed local lad Lukas Nussbaumer 21-9 21-12. Kashyap also had an easy outing against Stanislav Pukhov of Russia and defeated him 21-9 21-10 in just 22 minutes.
However it was curtains for RMV Gurusaidutt and Arvind Bhat as they lost their respective matches.
Gurusaidutt lost 11-21 24-26 to fourth seeded Chinese Jin Chen, while Arvind was thrashed 21-10 16-21 14-21 to Dmytro Zavadsky of Ukraine.
More sad news was in house as Indian pair of Jwala Gutta and V Diju, seeded eighth lost to Japanese duo of Shoji Sato and Shizuka Matsuo 13-21 15-21 in a 25-minute match.
By Indian Sports News Network
