Indian shuttlers Sourabh Verma and Arvind Bhat entered the second round of the men’s singles event at the SkyCity New Zealand Open with contrasting wins over their respective rivals in Auckland on Tuesday.
While second seeded Sourabh got the better of local lad James Eunson in straight games, fifth seed Arvind had to dug deep to beat Malaysia’s Zhen Ting Lim.
Sourabh defeated Eunson 21-16 21-14 in 30 minutes, while Arvind, the German Open champion took 33 minutes to prevail over Lim 21-9 14-21 21-7 at the North Shore Events Centre.
Sourabh will next face another local lad Dylan Henton in the next round of the USD 50,000 event, while Arvind will be up against Chinese Taipei’s Hsu Jui Ting.
