Saina Nehwal, Sai Praneeth in second round of Singapore Super Series

Ace shuttler Saina Nehwal crossed the first-round hurdle in women's singles, while Sai Praneeth B stunned world No 4 Yun Hu of Hong Kong to enter the second round of men's singles of the Singapore Super Series here on Wednesday.

However, it was curtains for all other Indians who suffered defeats in their respective opening round matches to crash out of the tournament.

Saina avenged her quarterfinal loss at the Thailand Open by Juan Gu with a comfortable straight-game win over the Singaporean.

The World No 2 Indian took 40 minutes to pack off world No 21 Juan with a scoreline of 21-14 23-21 at the Singapore Indoor Stadium to record her fifth victory over the local player.

The 23-year-old from Hyderabad will next take on Japanese Eriko Hirose, who holds a 3-2 record against the Indian. The world No 12 had spoilt Saina's All England campaign when she beat her in straight games in the quarterfinals in the 2011 edition.

Saina surged ahead to a 5-1 lead initially but Juan clawed back with four straight points. However, the Indian didn't allow Juan much chance after that and successfully kept her at bay to earn the bragging rights.

In the second game, Juan was impressive as she held a 10-5 lead early on but Saina bounced back to level par at 12-12. After a brief fight, Saina was successful in grabbing the lead at 19-16 but Juan didn't want to go down without a fight.

The Singaporean produced a four-point burst to lead 20-19 but it was Saina who had the last laugh in the end. Sai Praneeth, world number 61, brushed aside the second seeded Yun 21-9 21-10 in a match that lasted 30 minutes.

The 20-year-old from Hyderabad, who had spoilt former world and Olympics champion Taufik Hidayat's farewell in Indonesia, will next take on the winner between RMV Gurusaidutt and Wei Feng Chong in the second round.

Praneeth had lost to Yun in straight games at the Vietnam International Challenge in 2009. But today he proved to far more superior.

Meanwhile, R M V Gurusaidutt, K Srikanth and Ajay Jayaram went down fighting against their respective opponents in the men's singles opening round.

While Gurusaidutt lost 21-15 18-21 9-21 to Wei Feng Chong of Malaysia in 56 minutes, Ajay Jayaram was handed a 19-21 21-18 17-21 defeat by fourth seed Kenichi Tago of Japan in an hour and nine minutes and K Srikanth went down in 55 minutes to Tien Minh Nguyen, seeded sixth, 21-19 16-21 12-21.

Top seed Pengyu Du sent Anand Pawar packing 21-16 21-13 in 40 minutes another men's singles match. Another rising shuttler Sourabh Varma was defeated 17-21 17-21 by Wing Ki Wong in 37 minutes.

In other women's singles, Arundhati Pantawane lost to world number 26 Bulgarian Petya Nedelcheva 18-21 18-21, while PC Thulasi put up a gallant fight against world number 14 Indonesian Lindaweni Faetri before going down 23-21 16-21 16-21 in an energy-sapping 66-minute match.

In mixed doubles competition, Indian pair of Tarun Kona and Ashwini Ponnappa lost to third seeds Tontowi Ahmad and Liliyana Natsir 6-21 10-21, while Arun Vishnu and Aparna Balan suffered a 17-21 21-19 12-21 loss to Thai combo of Songphon Anugritayawon and Kunchala Voravichitchaikul.

The women's doubles pair of Aparna Balan and Siki Reddy N fell 21-18 18-21 6-21 against Malaysian combo of Meng Yean Lee and Yin Loo Lim.