Aparna Popat beat Simone Prutsch of Austria 5-11, 13-11, 11-1

New Delhi: National women’s champion Aparna Popat and Chetan Anand saved India the blushes after all the other men shuttlers were shown the door in the first round of the Singapore Open badminton singles event on Wednesday.

It was a day when all top eight men’s seeds sailed through the first round of this $ 170,000 meet, with Chinese world number one Lin Dan leading the way. Though the women’s side of the draw proved much more eventful, with three of the top eight seeds failing to make it past the first hurdle.

India’s Anand, who had to qualify for the main draw of this five-star event, gave no chance to Sho Sasaki of Japan and emerged victorious 15-6, 15-5 in just 26 minutes.

The world No. 97 will now meet 15th seed Dicky Palyama of the Netherlands in the second round.

In the women’s singles, Popat ? returning from a six-month injury induced lay off ? took time to settle down before getting the better of Simone Prutsch of Austria 5-11, 13-11, 11-1 in 45 minutes to move into the second round.

The Indian, who missed the Sudirman Cup mixed team championship in China last month, will now take on third seed Hongyan Pi of France in the second round.

Earlier, top ranked Indian Abhinn Shyam Gupta was the first to bow out when he went down to world No. 1 Lin Dan of China 4-15, 6-15 in a 55-minute encounter.

National champion Anup Sridhar was made to bite the dust by Vietnamese qualifier Tien Minh Nguyen 15-7, 15-11 while Nikhil Kanetkar showed his fighting spirit but could not overcome the challenge of Peter Mikkelsen of Denmark and lost 2-15, 15-7, 5-15.

Women’s fourth seed Yao Jie of the Netherlands was the highest ranked player to bow out, losing to Chinese qualifier Jiang Yan Jiao, 11-9, 9-11, 3-11.

English seventh seed Tracy Hallam crashed out to Bulgaria’s Petya Nedeltcheva, 11-2, 3-11, 9-11 in a scrappy affair, while sixth seed Xu Huaiwen of Germany could not even take the court due to a wrist injury. The beneficiary of the forfeit was veteran Mia Audina Tjiptawan, the former Indonesian badminton queen now representing the Netherlands.

The top seed in the women’s draw, Xie Xingfang of China, had a much easier time, beating Thailand’s Salakjit Polsana 11-4, 11-5. Fellow Chinese and defending champion Zhang Nin, the second seed, similarly breezed past Japan’s Eriko Hirose 11-3, 11-7.

Among the men, second seed Kenneth Jonassen of Denmark, also quickly dispatched his opponent, Thai qualifier Pumpat Sapkulchananart, 15-3, 15-4.

Taufik Hidayat defeated South Korea’s Ahn Hyun-suk 15-5, 15-11.

Thailand’s Boonsak Polsana, the world No. 10 and a semi-finalist in Athens. Polsana lost 7-15, 1-15 to South Korea’s Lee Hyun-il.