Anup Sridhar and Chetan Anand gave India a rousing start, scoring facile victories to storm into the singles pre-quarter-finals of the badminton competition at the Asian Games in Doha on Tuesday.
Also making the last 16 was the Sanave Thomas-Rupesh Kumar combination in the men's doubles, and woman shuttler Trupti Murugunde.
Anup had no difficulty while beating Sri Lanka's [Images] D Thilshan Karunaratne in just 20 minutes. The Indian won 21-16, 21-12.
Anup tired out Karunaratne with intelligent placements and drops for which the Lankan had no answer. The Indian, however, took time to settle down and in that period Karunaratne managed to garner some points.
The first game lasted 11 minutes but the Indian hurried up the matter in the second, wrapping it up in nine minutes.
In another match, Commonwealth Games [Images] bronze medal winner Chetan Anand made short work of Bahrain's Jaafar Hasan, winning 21-9, 21-11 in just 15 minutes.
Anand took seven minutes to finish the first game and eight minutes to claim the second.
In the men's doubles, Sanave Thomas and Rupesh Kumar had a very easy outing against the Sri Lankan pair of D Karunaratne and Nishan Karunaratne. The Indians took 15 minutes to win 21-6, 21-9.
In the women's section, Trupti got a walkover from Julia Wong of Malaysia.
Doha Asian Games 2006: The Complete Coverage
UNI