French Open 2018: Saina, Srikanth through to second round

Paris, October 24: Top Indian shuttlers Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth advanced to the second round of the French Open with straight-game wins but it was curtains for Sameer Verma at the $750,000 BWF event on Wednesday (October 24).

French Open: PV Sindhu breezes into second round with crushing win over Zhang

Saina, who finished runner-up in the Denmark Open last week, outclassed Japan's Saena Kawakami 21-11, 21-11 in the women's singles while defending champion Srikanth beat Hong Kong's Wong Wing Ki Vincent 21-19, 21-13 in the men's singles match in the opening round of the World Tour Super 750 event.

.@NSaina puts up her trademark display; makes it look like a one-sided affair to eclipse Japan’s Kawakami S 21-11, 21-11 and progress to R2 of the #FrenchOpenSuper750 🤜💪🏻🇮🇳#IndiaontheRise pic.twitter.com/dON49OzGKd

— BAI Media (@BAI_Media) October 24, 2018

World No 10 Saina will face either 2017 world champion Nozomi Okuhara of Japan or Spain's Beatriz Corrales next. Fifth-seeded Srikanth will meet Korean Lee Dong Keun.

Men's doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy defeated Korean duo of Min Hyuk Kang and Kim Won Ho 21-18, 21-17. They will square off against either Chinese third seeds Liu Cheng and Zhang Nan or Danish combination of Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen.

.@srikidambi gets on a winning note! 👏

Flamboyant display from the 🇮🇳 World No 6⃣; defeat Hong Kong's #WKVincent in straight sets securing a 21-19 21-13 win to progress into R2 of the #FrenchOpenSuper750#IndiaontheRise pic.twitter.com/MqxdYI02aM

— BAI Media (@BAI_Media) October 24, 2018

Indian mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa gave their everything before going down narrowly 22-24, 21-18, 19-21 to the husband-wife combination of Chris Adcock and Gabrielle Adcock from England.

Top-seeded Chinese mixed doubles pair of Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong ended the campaign of Rohan Kapoor and Kuhoo Garg with a 21-5, 21-10 win.