Malvika Bansod progressed to the women’s singles main draw of the Swiss Open, a BWF World Tour Super 300 event, in Basel on Tuesday.
The 21-year-old Bansod beat USA’s Lauren Lam 21-17, 21-7 in 31 minutes in her qualifying-round fixture. In the main draw, the Indian will face Korea’s Kim Ga Eun in the opening round. Bansod’s compatriot Aakarshi Kashyap was also supposed to play in the qualifying round but she got a spot in the main draw after another player’s withdrawal and will face Germany’s Yvonne Li in the first round.
Withdrawal’s on men’s side also allowed Kiran George and Mithun Manjunath to join HS Prannoy, Kidambi Srikanth and Lakshya Sen in the main draw. George will take on Frenchman Christo Popov while Mithun will face a qualifier. Priyanshu Rajawat went down 7-21, 5-21 to Chia Hao Lee of Chinese Taipei in his first-round match of qualification stage.
In mixed doubles, Rohan Kapoor and N. Sikki Reddy got past the German duo of Patrick Scheiel and Franziska Volkmann 21-17, 15-21, 21-18 to reach the main draw where they’ll take on Singapore’s Hee Yong Kai Terry and Tan Wei Han Jessica. The other Indian mixed doubles duo of Ashwini Ponnappa and B. Sumeeth Reddy 20-22, 12-21 to Chiu Hsiang Chieh and Lin Xiao Min of Chinese Taipei in their qualifying-round match.
In men’s doubles, Sumeeth Reddy and Kapoor lost 15-21, 20-22 to Malaysian pair Boon Xin Yuan-Wong Tien Ci while in women’s doubles, Ponnappa-Tanisha Crasto went down 19-21, 15-21 to China’s Du Yue and Xia Yu Ting in the qualifying round.
Later in the day, women’s doubles pairs Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand and Ashwini Bhat K.-Shikha Gautam, and men’s doubles pairs M.R. Arjun-Dhruv Kapila and Krishna Prasad Garaga-Vishnu Goud Panjala will begin their campaign in the main draw.