The National champion and the country's No 1 player faced little difficulty in getting past Maharashtra's Nilesh Pandirkar 21-13, 21-16, 21-14 as the men's singles main draw got under way today.

Baboor's Petroleum Sports Control Board (PSCB) team-mate, second seed Arup Basak also duly made the third round with a 21-9, 21-18, 21-19 win over Assam's Someshwar Deka.

However, there were some surprises though not among the seeds.

National ranked players Sunil Babras (Dena Bank) and J Premkumar (TN) experienced a quick end to their campaign.

Babras crashed to India junior star Subhajit Saha (Bengal) while Prem Kumar went down to Jatin Rastogi (UP) in second round matches that went all the way.

Saha won 2-12, 16-21, 19-21, 21-14, 21-14 while Rastogi regained the initiative to win 22-20, 21-15, 16-21,12-21, 21-19.

The other seeds in the men's singles section - Bhushan Thakur (3), Deepak Thakural (4), Sibhajit Saha Sr (5), Nupur Santra (6), Ganesh Kundu (7) and Sauvik Dey (8) advanced to the third round.

In the boys singles, top seeded Subhajit Saha beat Maharashtra's Sahil Kukreja 21-13, 21-11, to enter the second round. However, Eric Fernandes and Aditya Mahagaonkar gave local fans some thing to cheer about by winning their opening round matches.

Fernandes beat Uday S Athrey (Karnataka) 21-19, 21-17 while Mahagaonkar got the better of Snehasis Bhattacharya 21-17, 21-19.

RESULTS

Men (first round): G Joseph (Mah) bt A Dixit (TN) 21-18, 21-17, 19-21, 21-14; Subhajit Saha (Ben) bt J Prem Kumar (TN) 21-12, 16-21, 19-21, 21-14, 21-14; Indiver Chatterjee (Ben) bt Prasanjit Sorkar (Rlys) 22-20, 21-12, 19-21, 21-14; Anupam Kanwar (Asm) bt D Sane (Rlys) 21-16, 21-9, 21-18; Arjun Datta (Indian Oil) bt G Bhivandkar (Mah) 21-15, 22-20, 21-17; C Channa (Guj) bt Prithviraj Bose (Ben) 22-24, 21-15,22-20, 21-15; G Kundu (Rlys) bt Abhay Gupta (Raj) 21-6, 21-10, 21-15; R Chandran (TN) bt S Namjoshi (Mah) 21-11, 20-22, 21-11; Kishanjoy Basak (Ben) bt Z Panthaky (Mah) 21-15, 21-6, 21-16; S Sriram (PSCB) bt S Mehra (Mah) 25-23, 11-21, 21-15, 21-19; Shibaji Datta (Rlys) bt Munish Bhardwaj (Pnb) 21-18, 22-20, 21-14; Sonyadeep Roy (Ben) bt Kalpesh Thakkar (Guj) 21-13, 21-10, 21-18; R Das (Ben) bt Rajesh Shelar (Rlys) 21-19, 21-14, 21-19; Arup Basak (PSCB) bt Someshwar Deka (Asm) 21-9, 21-18, 21-19; C Baboor (PSCB) bt N Pardikar (Mah) 21-13, 21-16, 21-14; N Santra (Rlys) bt S Grover (Mah) 21-15, 20-22, 21-11, 21-12; B S Thakur (Rlys) bt G Vishwanath (Kar) 21-10, 21-12, 21-18; D Thukral (Pnb) bt P Satpathy (MP) 21-10, 21-12, 21-18.