Treesa-Gayatri enter second round of Malaysia Masters; Indians falter in singles qualification

Kuala Lumpur: Indian shuttlers Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand progressed to the second round of women's doubles competition after securing a straight-game win over Chinese Taipei's Huang Yu-Hsun and Liang Ting Yu at the Malaysia Masters Super 500 here on Tuesday.

Commonwealth Games bronze medallists Treesa and Gayatri, seventh seeded, notched up a fine 21-14 21-10 win over Huang and Liang, ranked 104, in the round of 32.

There were four Indians in men's singles qualification round but none could make the cut for the main draw.

Sathish Kumar Karunakaran, who won his maiden BWF Super 100 title at Odisha Masters last December, beat Malaysia's Cheam June Wei 21-15 21-19 before going down 21-13 20-22 13-21 to Indonesia's Shesar Hiren Rhustavito.

Ayush Shetty, a bronze medallist at the World Junior Championships, beat compatriot Kartikey Gulshan Kumar 21-7 21-14 but lost 21-23 21-16 17-21 to Thailand's Panitchaphon Teeraratsakul.

Former World Junior Championships silver medallist S Sankar Subramanian suffered 12-21 17-21 to Rhustavito in the opening round of qualification.

In women's singles qualifiers, Tanya Hemanth went down 21-23 8-21 to Lin Sih Yun of Chinese Taipei.

In women's doubles, Palak Arora and Unnati Hooda lost 10-21 5-21 to Chinese Taipei's Hsu Yin-Hui and Lin Jhij Yun to also bow out of the competition.