German Open: Sankar Muthuswamy moves to main draw, Treesa/Gayatri win

Indian shuttlers returned to action in the BWF International circuit as S Sankar made it to the main draw in men's singles while Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand moved to the round of 16 at the German Open Super 300 badminton tournament on Tuesday.

Former BWF Junior World Championships silver medalist Sankar defeated Germany's Kai Schaefer 21-17, 21-10 in the opening match of qualifiers. Later, he went on to defeat Tobias Kuenzi of Switzerland 21-11, 21-18 securing his place in the men's singles main draw.

The world no. 65 Indian, who had won the Luxembourg Open international series and reached the finals of the Scottish Open last year, will face fifth seed Brian Yang of Canada in the main draw.

Later in the day, the women's doubles pair of Treesa and Gayatri defeated the Chinese Taipei pair of Hsu Yin-Hui and Lin Jhih Yun in a three-game thriller.

The Indian pair, who are the fourth seed in the tournament, made a comeback from one game down to win 18-21, 21-11, 21-13 in a match that went on for 57 minutes.

Treesa/Gayatri will face the qualifiers coming through in the round of 16.

Rutuparna Panda/Swetaparna Panda, Sathish Kumar, Tanya Hemanth, Aakarshi Kashyap and S Sankar Muthuswamy will be in action today.

Big Indian names such as HS Prannoy, PV Sindhu, Lakshya Sen, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, and Chirag Shetty are not participating in the Super 300 event after playing in the Badminton Asia Team Championships.