German Open: Srikanth, Kashyap advance to second round

Sixth seed Kidambi Srikanth took on World No.33 Takuma Ueda in his opening round and faced the prospect of a shock first round exit after surrendering the first game 12-21. The World No.10 mounted a comeback in the second game with a much-improved performance and pocketed it 21-18. With the match deadlocked at one game each, the Indian upped his game for the third and final game and romped to victory by claiming it 21-11. After the pulsating encounter, which lasted almost an hour, Srikanth entered the second round of the tournament and will face Erik Meijs from Netherlands.

Unlike his counterpart, World No.17 Parupalli Kashyap had a cakewalk in the opening round against World No.71 Artem Pochtarev from Ukraine. Kashyap finished off the contest in just 24 minutes and claimed a passage into the next round with a 21-9, 21-9 victory. The 29-year old will next face Irish shuttler, Joshua Magee.

(Read about Indian men's badminton team's bronze medal winning performance at the Badminton Asia Team Championships)

Sameer Verma also joined Srikanth and Kashyap in the second round of the tournament after defeating Ukraine shuttler Dmytro Zavadsky 21-9, 21-8. He will next face 15th seed Lee Dong-Keun from South Korea.

The only disappointment for India on the opening round came in the form of Kaushal Dharmamer, who bowed out after losing to 14th seed Marc Zwiebler 4-21, 14-21. Dharmamer had defeated another German David Peng 21-10, 21-13 in the qualification round.  

(Read about the star in making - Kidambi Srikanth: raising India's Olympic hopes)