National women's champion Aparna Popat and Chetan Anand saved India the blushes after all the other men's shuttlers were shown the door in the singles first round at the Singapore Open badminton championships on Wednesday.
Anand, who had to qualify for the main draw of this 5-star event, gave no chance to Sho Sasaki of Japan and emerged victorious 15-6, 15-5 in just 26 minutes.
The world no 97 will now meet 15th seed Dicky Palyama of The Netherlands.
In the women's singles, Popat, returning after a six-month injury induced lay-off, took time to settle down before getting the better of Simone Prutsch of Austria 5-11, 13-11, 11-1 in 45 minutes to move into the second round.
The Indian ace, who missed the Sudirman Cup mixed team championship in China last month, will now take on third seed Hongyan Pi of France.
Earlier, top-ranked Indian Abhinn Shyam Gupta was the first to bow out when he went down to world no 1 Lin Dan of China 4-15, 6-15 in a 55-minute encounter.
National champion Anup Sridhar was forced to bite the dust by Vietnamese qualifier Tien Minh Nguyen 15-7, 15-11 while Nikhil Kanetkar showed his fighting spirit but could not overcome the challenge of Peter Mikkelsen of Denmark and lost 2-15, 15-7, 5-15.
Indians' results:
Men: Chetan Anand beat Sho Sasaki (Japan) 15-6, 15-5; Abhinn Shyam Gupta lost to Lin Dan (China) 4-15, 6-15; Nikhil Kanetkar lost to Peter Mikkelsen (Denmark) 2-15, 15-7, 5-15; Anup Sridhar lost to Tien Minh Nguyen (Vietnam) 7-15, 11-15.
Women: Aparna Popat beat Simone Prutsch (Austria) 5-11, 13-11, 11-1.
