Two-time Olympic medallist P. V. Sindhu was made to toil hard by China's He Bing Jiao before emerging victorious in the opening round of the Malaysia Masters, while compatriot Saina Nehwal made a second consecutive first-round exit on Wednesday.
The seventh seed Sindhu took close to an hour to knock out Bing Jiao 21-13, 17-21, 21-15 and move to the second round.
By virtue of the win, the world number seven Sindhu exacted revenge for her first round exit from the Indonesia Open Super 1000 last month when Bing Jiao had defeated her in straight games. The Chinese still leads the head to head 10-9.
London Olympics bronze medallist Saina, on the other hand, squandered a one-game lead to go down 21-16, 17-21, 14-21 to Kim Ga Eun of South Korea.
The world number 24 Indian had also made a first-round exit from the Malaysia Open Super 750 tournament last week.
In the men's singles, HS Prannoy sailed into the second round after he claimed a comfortable 21-19, 21-14 victory over Frenchman Brice Leverdez.
In the men's singles, B Sai Praneeth and Parupalli Kashyap moved to the second round with contrasting wins.
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While Verma broke hardly a sweat against Kevin Cordon, registering an easy 21-8, 21-9 win over Guatemalan in less than half an hour, Kashyap came back from a one-game deficit to dispatch local favourite Tommy Sugiarto 16-21, 21-16, 21-16.
Praneeth will take on Li Shi Feng in the pre-quarterfinals.
However, it was the end of the road for Sameer Verma, who went down fighting to fourth seed Chinese Taipei shuttler Chou Tien Chen 21-10, 12-21, 14-21.
The women's doubles pair of N Sikki Reddy and Ashwini Ponnappa lost 19-21, 21-18, 16-21 to the Indonesian duo of Fabriana Kusuma and Amalia Pratiwi in a hard-fought game that lasted a little more than an hour.
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