Verma brothers advance to second round of Bitburger Badminton Open

Indian shuttlers Sourabh and Sameer Verma progressed to the second round of the men's singles competition of the USD 120,000 Bitburger Open Grand Prix Gold badminton.

Sourabh, who clinched the Chinese Taipei title early this month, defeated Austria's Rudiger Gnedt 21-16 21-11 in just 20 minutes, while his younger brother Sameer who became thesenior National champion this year, beat Germany's Alexander Roovers 21-11 21-11 in another match.

Sourabh, who had reached the finals at International Challenge events at Belgium and Poland, will next face formidable Chinese Xue Song, seeded 14th.

The 12th seed Sameer will be up against Eetu Heino of Finland in the second round. However, it was curtains for upcoming shuttlers Siril Verma and Subhankar Dey.

Siril suffered a 17-21 16-21 loss to sixth seed Ihsan Maulana Mustofa of Indonesia, while Subhankar lost 19-21 18-21 to fifth seed Jonatan Christie of Indonesia in another openinground match.

In the qualifying round, men's doubles pair of Yogendran Khrisnan of Malaysia and Kamaldeep Singh defeated Austria's Wolfgang Gnedt and Malaysia's Woon Kok Hong 21-12 16-21 21-19. They will take on England's Matthew Nottingham and Harley Towler.

However, the mixed doubles pair of Kamaldeep Singh and Malaysia's Zhi Qing Lee lost 10-21 21-16 14-21 to German combo of Bjarne Geiss and Eva Janssens.