At the USD 475,000 Indonesia Masters Super 500 badminton event, young Tanisha Crasto and Dhruv Kapila got off to a strong start in the mixed doubles division, defeating their opponents in straight games on Wednesday to advance to the second round.

In their first match, Crasto and Kapila beat the Indonesian duo of Adnan Maulana and Indah Cahya Sari Jamil 21-18, 21-14 to go to a matchup with Pang Ron Hoo and Su Yin Cheng of Malaysia.

Crasto partnered with seasoned Ashwini Ponnappa to advance to the second round of the women’s doubles tournament on Tuesday. The duo beat Ornnicha Jongsathapornparn and Sukitta Suwachai of Thailand 21-6, 21-14. They will now play Mei Xing Teoh and Pei Kee Go of Malaysia.

However, Rohan Kapoor and Ruthvika Shivani Gadde, the other Indian mixed doubles team, lost to Gregory and Jenny Mairs of England 9-21, 13-21, in the first round.

India’s day got off to a very bad start as both Kiran George and Ayush Shetty, the runners-up in the 2023 Odisha Masters, lost their opening-round men’s singles matches.

While Kiran George fell 12-21, 10-21 versus Jeon Hyeok-jin of Korea, Shetty put up a fierce battle against world No. 1 and twin Asian Games gold medalist Shi Yu Qi of China before losing 19-21, 19-21.

Later in the day, Priyanshu Rajawat will play Kodai Naraoka, another Japanese, while Lakshya Sen will face Takuma Obayashi of Japan. In the women’s singles, India too had a poor start as Tanya Hemanth fell to Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon 14-21, 11-21 and Rakshitha Sree Santhosh Ramraj lost to Japanese Tomoka Miyazaki 17-21, 19-21, in the first round.

Later in the evening, PV Sindhu, a two-time Olympic winner, will take on Thuy Linh Nguyen of Vietnam to start her campaign.

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, the top-seeded Indian men’s doubles team, easily defeated Chen Zhi Ray and Lin Yu Chieh of Chinese Taipei 21-16, 21-15 to go to the second round.

The Thai pairing of Kittinupong Kedren and Dechapol Puavaranukroh will be the next opponent for the Asian Games winners, who advanced to the semifinals of both the Malaysia Super 1000 and the India Super 750 in the previous two weeks.