Saina avenges All-England defeat to Eriko

Saina Nehwal avenged her All-England quarter-final defeat to Eriko Hirose with a thrilling three-game victory over the Japanese in the second round of the Wilson Swiss Open Super Series in Switzerland.

The second seeded Indian beat All-England finalist Eriko 21-15, 17-21, 21-11 in a little under 60 minutes and set up quarter-final meeting with sixth seeded Bulgarian Petya Nedelcheva.

Nedelcheva defeated qualifier Karin Schnaase of Germany 21-12, 21-11 on Thursday night.

Eriko had beaten Saina in the quarter-finals of the All England Championships last week and the Japanese got off to a good start in the first game.

She opened up a four-point lead at 9-4 but Saina caught up and moved ahead to pocket the opener.

Her back to the wall, Eriko came back strongly in the second game and moved neck-and-neck with Saina before surging ahead from 17-16 to level scores.

In the decider, world No 4 Saina didn't allow her opponent any chances and shut the match with ruthless precision, moving to 13-5 first and then holding on as Eriko crumbled.

In the men's singles, Ajay Jayaram also reached the quarter-finals with a hard-fought 15-21, 23-21, 21-19 victory over 16th seed Hans-Kristian Vittinghus of Denmark in the third round.

He will take on fourth seed Sung Hwan Park of Korean next.

Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas beat sixth seeds Mads Conrad-Petersen and Jonas Rasmussen of Denmark 17-21, 21-15, 21-15 in the men's doubles.

The Indian duo will next take on fourth seeds Chieh Min Fang and Sheng Mu Lee of Chinese Taipei in the quarter-finals.

In the women's doubles, there was disappointment in store for Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa.

The Commonwealth Games gold medallist lost 16-21, 12-21 to seventh seeds Shizuka Matsuo and Mami Naito in the pre-quarter-finals.