Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu advanced to the second round of the ongoing Hong Kong Open after defeating their respective opponents on Wednesday.
On the comeback trail following recovery from surgery, Saina came from behind to beat Thailand's Porntip Buranaprasertsuk 12-21, 21-19, 21-17 in 56 minutes. She will face Japan's Sayaka Sato in the second round.
With this, Saina also made up for her first-round loss to world No. 12 Buranaprasertsuk in the China Open last week. The tournament in Fuzhou had been Saina's first since her post-Olympics knee surgery.
"I am sure the win will do a lot of good for her self belief especially Beating an opponent you lost to in the previous week.This win is an indication that she is progressing.Of course she has some way to go to get to the top level," Saina's coach Vimal Kumar told ESPN.
A few weeks after going under the surgeon's knife, Sania had told ESPN that she thought "somewhere deep in my heart that maybe it is the end of my career".
Sindhu, who entered the event soon after a win at the recently concluded China Open Super Series Premier, registered a comfortable 21-13, 21-16 win against Indonesia's Susanto Yosephin in 32 minutes. She will next face Hsu Ya Ching from Chinese Taipei.
In the men's event, India's Sameer Verma, HS Prannoy and Ajay Jayaram won their first-round matches. Verma beat Takuma Ueda (Japan) 22-20, 21-18, Prannoy defeated Qiao Bin (China) 21-16, 21-18 and Jayaram beat Anthony Sinisuka Ginting (Indonesia) 21-15, 13-21, 21-16. B Sai Praneeth, however, lost 18-21, 18-21 to third seed Jan O Jorgensen to end his campaign early.
In men's doubles, Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy lost 15-21, 8-21 to the South Korean pair of Solgyu Choi and Ko Sung Hyun.