PTI

Birmingham, Mar 8: Saina Nehwal managed to clear the first hurdle in women's singles but compatriot Chetan Anand crashed out of the All-England Open badminton championship with a first round defeat here.

The women's doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Shruti Kurien also made an early exit with a 16-21, 21-7, 10-21 defeat against the Indonesian duo of Vita Marissa and Greysia Polii in 33 minutes.

Saina overcame early jitters to get the better of Anita Raj Kaur of Malaysia 20-22, 21-15, 21-19 but the win pits her against third seed Wang Chen of Hong Kong and the Hyderabadi shuttler would have to come up with something extraordinary to get past her formidable second round opponent.

Sania looked rusty in her match against Kaur and the Malaysian player did well to grab the opportunities that came her way and pocket the first game.

That served as a wake-up call for Saina and the Indian responded with alacrity. She was her aggressive self again and that paid off as she won the second game to draw parity.

The decider turned out to be a see-saw affair but Sania kept her cool and her superior movement and better net play clinched the issue in her favour.

In the men's singles, Chetan Anand proved no match for third seeded Malaysian Lee Chong Wei and the wristy Indian crashed out with a 12-21, 4-21 defeat.

Chetan started on a positive note and put up some sort of resistance in the first game. But once Lee read his game, Chetan was found struggling and the Malaysian dropped just four points before bagging the second game and show the door to Chetan in just 18 minutes.