India's singles specialists, including second seed Ramkumar Ramanathan and Ankita Raina, made a smooth start to their campaign at the 18th Asian Games here today.
Having got first-round byes yesterday, Indians had a busy day with matches in both singles and doubles.
Ramanathan, who reached the finals of the Hall of Fame Championships last month, won the first set 6-0 against Wong Hong Kit but was stretched by the Hong Kong player in the second set before getting past 7-6 (4) on a tie-break in a round of 32 match.
Prajnesh Gunneswaran, the 28-year-old from Chennai, had it easy against Indonesia Rifqi M Fitriadi, winning 6-2, 6-0 to progress to the last 16.
India's first match of the day was of Ankita Raina, who beat Beatrice Gumulya 6-2, 6-4 in a round of 32 match lasting almost two hours.
Then it was the turn of Karman Kaur Thandi who had little difficulty in getting past Mongolian Jargal Altansarnai, 6-1, 6-0.
In men's doubles, Ramanathan and Sumit Nagal, who formed a pairing at the last-minute, cleared the opening hurdle. They defeated Nepal's Abhishek Batola and Samrakshy Bajracharya 6-1, 6-1 to reach the round of 16.
However, there was a disappointment for India in the women's doubles as Rutuja Bhonsale and Pranjala Yadlapalli lost to Thailand's Peangtarn Plipuech and Nicha Lertpitaksinchai after winning the first set. They eventually went down 6-4, 3-6, 9-11.
Men's doubles top seeds Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan, who are gold medal contenders also defeated Indonesia's David Susanto and Ignatius Susanto 6-3, 6-3 to progress to the pre-quarterfinals of men's doubles
