Basel: Indian shuttler Anand Pawar went down fighting to Chinese Taipei's Tien Chen Chou in the pre-quarterfinals while Saina Nehwal made a winning start to her campaign in women's singles in the USD 125,000 Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold on Thursday.
World number 36 Anand squandered a first game advantage to suffer a 21-14, 12-21, 12-21 defeat against Chou in a 51-minute men's singles match. This was Anand's third defeat to Chou. He had lost to the Taiwanese shuttler in German Open this year.
Pawar had fended off the challenge from another German Tobias Wadenka 21-11, 21-4 in the second round.
Meanwhile, London Olympics bronze medallist Saina opened her campaign with a straight game win over qualifier Chisato Hoshi of Japan. The sixth seeded Indian beat her Japanese opponent 21-12, 21-12 in 34 minutes to progress to the second round.
Top Indian male shuttler Parupalli Kashyap eased into the third round. The third seed Indian took 33 minutes to dispose off Lukas Schmidt of Germany 21-15, 21-14 last night to secure his place in the pre-quarterfinals of the men's singles event.
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