Saina storms into Swiss Open second round

India's top ranked and ace women's shuttler Saina Nehwal started off her Swiss Open campaign in style as she spanked her Canadian opponent Anna Rice with an identical score of 21-13, 21-13 to notch up a straight games victory in the first round of the $200,000 Swiss Open being underway in Basel.

Saina was in a rampant mood against her Canadian opponent all through the match, as she claimed 42 rallies compared to her opponent's 26 and pocketed the tie in exact half an hour time on Wednesday night.

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Earlier in the morning, India’s Anup Sridhar scored an upset victory over world No. 17 Shoji Sato of Japan 22-20, 13-21 and 21-14 in men's singles first round. Sridhar got some stiff resistance form his opponent as the first game went close to the wire before the Indian settled it in his favour with a score of 22-20.

Japan’s Sato was in no mood to give up so easily as he bounced back and pocketed the second game to level the terms with a convincing 21-13 scoreline. But the Indian was enjoying a great combination of touch and timing as he clinched the decider and the tie 21-14 in his favour.

In the men’s qualifying round, Arvind Bhat lost to Yu Hsin Hsieh of Chinese Taipei 12-21, 18-21 without giving much trouble to his rival, while Peter Koukal of Czech Republic defeated Chetan Anand 21-16, 21-19.

India's ace women's doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Shruti Kurian was outplayed by Indonesian pair of Vita Marissa and Liliyana Natsir 18-21, 17-21 in the opening round of the Swiss open.