Anmol, Aakarshi enter main draw of Indonesia Masters

Jakarta, Jan 20 (PTI) Indian youngster Anmol Jharb and compatriot Aakarshi Kashyap won their respective qualifying round matches to advance to the women's main draw of the USD 500,000 Indonesia Masters here on Tuesday.

The 19-year-old Anmol, who has shocked several higher ranked over the course of her impressive career, humbled Canadian World No. 45 Wen Yu Zhang 21-18 20-22 21-19 in an engrossing contest.

Aakarshi, 24, defeated Isharani Baruah 21-13 21-17 in an all-Indian matchup.

The duo will join PV Sindhu, Malvika Bansod and Tanvi Sharma in the first round of the women's singles main draw on Wednesday.

The men's doubles pair of MR Arjun and Hariharan Amsakarunan, the only Indians in the main draw on the opening day of the Super 500 tournament, beat Indonesia's Devin Artha Wahyudi and Ali Faathir Rayhan 21-19 21-13 in their round of 32 match.

In other qualification matches, former junior world number Tasnim Mir came up short against Denmark's Amalie Schulz 12-21 16-21, while the women's doubles duo of Rashmi Ganesh and Sania Sikkandar went down to top seeds Keng Shu Liang and Li Hua Zhou of China 21-23 10-21.

The Indian shuttlers are eyeing a drastic improvement at the Indonesia Masters after last week's disappointing home run at the India Open in New Delhi.

In the Super BWF 750 tournament in the national capital, Lakshya Sen bowed out in the men's singles quarterfinals, while no Indian progressed beyond the last eight in any category as Chinese Taipei's Lin Chun-Yi and world number one An Se Young of Korea clinched the men's and women's singles titles respectively. PTI AH AH BS BS