Tokyo: London Olympic bronze medallist shuttler Saina Nehwal kicked off her BWF World Championships campaign with a straight game win over Hong Kong's Cheung Ngan Yi here on Tuesday.
Saina took 38 minutes to dispatch Ngan Yi 21-19, 21-9 in the opening round.
The 32-year-old, who has a silver and bronze from the Worlds, thus moved into the pre-quarterfinals as her second-round opponent, Nozomi Okuhara pulled out of the tournament due to an injury, giving the Indian a bye.
The women's doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand also made a winning start.
The Indians hardly broke a sweat as they inflicted a 21-11, 21-13 defeat on the Malaysian duo of Yeen Yuan Low and Valeree Siow.
Young women's pairing of Ashwini Bhat K and Shikha Gautam also progressed to the second round after beating the Italian duo of Martina Corsini and Judith Mair 21-8, 21-14 in 30 minutes.
However, it was the end of the road for the mixed doubles pair of Venkat Gaurav Prasd and Juhi Dewangan as they went down 10-21, 21-23 to Gregory Mairs and Jenny Moore of England.
Men's doubles pair of Krishna Prasad Garaga and Vishnuvardhan Goud Panjala also crashed out of the tournament, losing 14-21, 18-21 to France's Fabien Delrue and William Villeger.
Mixed doubles duo of Tanisha Crasto and Ishaan Bhatnagar also didn't have a good outing, losing 14-21, 17-21 to 14th seeds Supak Jomkoh and Supissara Paewsampran of Thailand.
