Madrid Spain Masters: Mithun Manjunath Enters Main Draw, Krishna-Pratheek?Into?Round?2

In the opening round, Manjunath, a former national champion, prevailed 15-21 24-22 21-18 over compatriot S Sankar Muthusamy, who had claimed the 2022 world junior championships silver medal in Spain.

A trainee at the Prakash Padukone academy, Manjunath then defeated Chinese Taipei's Liao Jhuo-Fu 21-13 21-13 to storm into the main draw.

The world no. 64 Indian will face another Taiwanese in Wang Tzu Wei in the main draw. Indian doubles pair of Krishna Prasad Garaga and Sai Pratheek K outlasted Canada's Dong Adam (Xingyu) and Nyl Yakura 21-15 28-30 21-11 in a thrilling opener.

However, Commonwealth Games bronze medallists Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand fell in the opening round of women's doubles.

The Indian pair, seeded fifth, lost 18-21 22-20 18-21 to USA's Annie Xu and Kerry Xu, ranked 33rd to almost end their chances of making the cut for Paris Olympics.

Sameer Verma also lost 10-21 14-21 to Singapore's Jia Heng Jason Teh in the qualifier. He had defeated Alvaro Leal 21-9 21-12 in the first round. Aadya Variyath also lost in qualifiers.