Indian star Saina Nehwal defeated Aliye Demirbag of Turkey in straight games to enter the third round of the women's singles draw at the Badminton World Championships in Nanjing on Tuesday.
In the men’s draw, Kidambi Srikanth moved to the second round after defeating Ireland’s Nhat Nguyen 21-15, 21-16. Srikanth will face Spain’s Pablo Abian in his next match.
Saina fought off a brave effort from her Turkish opponent to cruise to a 21-17, 21-18 victory in just 39 minutes.
The Hyderabad-based Indian is expected to face a tougher challenge in the next round where she will meet an experienced opponent in fourth seed Ratchanok Intanon of Indonesia.
Ratchanok staged a strong comeback to win a tough encounter against the impressive Mia Blichfeldt of Denmark.
The nail-biting see-saw battle, which lasted an hour and 16 minutes, saw Ratchanok carve out a 16-21, 22-20, 21-10 victory.
(With inputs from IANS)