Indian doubles teams cruise into badminton Worlds pre-quarters

Indian men's and women's doubles pairs steamrolled over their respective opponents to sail into the pre-quarterfinals of the World Badminton Championships in Paris.

The women's doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa, seeded 16th in the prestigious tournament, needed just 18 minutes to thrash Ukrainians Maria Ulitina and Natalya Voytsekh 21-8, 21-10 in their second round match.

The Indian duo, who got a walkover in their opening round, will now take on six seeded Korean pair of Jung Eun Ha and Min Jung Kim in the pre-quarterfinals.

The Korean duo had thrashed unseeded Swiss pair of Marion Gruber and Sabrina Jaquet 21-2, 21-5 in another second round match.

Jwala had also made it to the pre-quarterfinals of the mixed doubles event. Jwala and V Diju have beaten Malaysian pair of Peng Soon Chan and Liu Ying Goh 21-19, 21-8 in the second round.

In the men's doubles second round, the 15th seeded Indian duo of Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas also scored a comfortable 21-14, 21-16 win over South Africans Dorian Lance James and Willem Viljoen in just 23 minutes.

In the pre-quarterfinals, they play eighth seeded Danish pair Lars Passke and Jonas Rasmussen who defeated Austrian duo of Daniel Grassmuck and Roman Zirnwald.

Rupesh and Sanave were literally on fire as they never lost the lead.

In the first game, after leading 10-8, both Rupesh and Sanave dominated the mid court with smashes and drop shots.

If there were a few hiccups for the Indians in the second game, it was simply because of a few unforced errors. But they immediately made amends and finished off the game with some fine placements in the corners of the court.

"It was a good display. I think we combined well and out-thought the opponent with some good placements. In the second game, I think when we were leading 12-9, we kind of played a few loose shots but soon we checked it," Rupesh said.