Parupalli Kashyap booked a place in the pre-quarter-finals of the All-England Badminton Championships after a straight games victory over Jen Hao Hsu of Chinese Taipei on Thursday.
The world No 9 Indian ace won his first round match 21-17, 21-18 in 43 minutes. He now runs into seventh seed Kenichi Tago of Japan.
Sourabh Verma, who qualified for the main draw, was the other Indian to make it to the round of 16 in the men's singles.
Verma beat Dionysius Hayom Rumbaka of Indonesia 10-21, 21-14, 24-22 in 59 minutes. He meets eighth seed Tien Minh Nguyen of Vietnam next.
It was, however, curtains for Ajay Jayaram, who lost 21-15, 18-21, 10-21 to Zhengming Wang of China.
In the women's singles, star player Saina Nehwal and P V Sindhu advanced to the round of 16 on Wednesday night.
Saina had to sweat it out to beat Sapsiree Taerattanachai of Thailand 21-8, 18-21, 21-16, while Sindhu registered a relatively easy 21-13, 21-18 win over Busanan Ongbumrungpan of Thailand.
In the mixed doubles event, V Diju and Jwala Gutta made it to the pre-quarter-finals with a 21-9, 21-17 win over Peter Kaesbauer and Isabel Herttrich of Germany, even as the other two Indian pairs -- Akshay Dewalkar and Pradnya Gadre, and Tarun Kona and Ashwini Ponnappa -- fell by the wayside.
Dewalkar and Gadre lost to the Malaysian combination of Jian Guo Ong and Yin Loo Lim 8-21, 13-21, while Kona and Ponnappa were beaten 18-21, 10-21 by Fran Kurniawan and Shendy Puspa Irawati of Indonesia.
