India's challenge in the men's singles ended with the defeat of P Kashyap but gritty Aditi Mutatkar made her maiden quarter-finals of the Asian Badminton Championship after notching up a thrilling win in New Delhi on Thursday.
The 13th seed Kashyap fought his heart out against Hong Kong's seventh seed Yun Hu but lost the pre-quarterfinal encounter 16-21, 21-18, 13-21.
Kashyap had turned the heat on his fancied rival by winning the second game and was neck and neck in the third game but an adverse decision disturbed his rhythm and focus and the Andra Pradesh went on to lose the battle.
While Kashyap was engaged in a fierce fight with Yun, Aditi was scripting her own success story on another court.
Back from injury, Aditi made a remarkable comeback from 15-20 in the opening to win the match 23-21, 21-11 against Chinese Taipei's Hsiao Huan Chen.
She will next take on Chinese qualifier Xin Liu, who shocked Japanese eighth seed Sayaka Sako.
However, the biggest upset of the day was scripted by Chinese Taipei's Hsuan Yi Hsueh, who sent packing the top seed Taufik Hidayat of Indonesian in straight games.
Hsuan beat Taufik 22-20, 21-16 in a 39-minute clash. "It is the biggest win of my career," Hsuan said.
Earlier, India's third seeded men's doubles pair of Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas spanked the Bangladeshi combo of Rais Md Uddin and Jabed Mostafa 21-10, 21-2 to advance to the second round.
The women's doubles pair of Shruti Kurian and Aparna Balan also notched up an easy win over Singaporean Aiying Xing and Beiwen Zhang 21-14, 21-9 to make the next round.
They will face sixth seed Chinese pair of Pan Pan and Qing Tian.
However, it was curtains for their compatriots Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa as they squandered a first game lead to go down 21-18, 15-21, 17-21 against Indonesian combo of Meiliana Jauhari and Greysia Polii.
Men's doubles pair of Tarun Kona and Jishnu Sanyal also found the going tough and went down 18-21, 21-12, 16-21 against Vietnamese pair of Nguyen Khang Huynh and Hoang Nam Nguyen in a closely fought match.
Akshay Dewalkar and Arun Vishnu also became a first round casualty after losing 18-21 15-21 to second seeds Hirokatsu Hashimoto and Noriyasu Hirata of Japan in 27 minutes.
Aditi said her never say die attitude won her the match. "I couldn't read her drops. She has this weird action but I got accustomed eventually. I said to myself that I should not give up and that 18th point in the first game set the ball rolling for me," Aditi said.
"This is my first quarters in ABC and I am very happy with my performance. It has boosted my confidence. I have become stronger mentally," she added.
Still coming to terms with the close defeat, Kashyap said he lost focus after the wrong decision.
"I lost focus after that line call. It disturbed me and after that I just couldn't get going. He has a very tricky style of playing like Taufik (Hidayat). I was in the faster side so I kept the shuttle down. I was getting points when I kept it in the corners. He is very good close to his body," said Kashyap.
Moments after winning their first match, Shruti said it was an easy match and they coordinated very well.
"I expected it be tougher but it was a one-sided match. We are playing and coordinating well as a team. We are looking for performance and the idea will be to play one match at a time. We are not thinking about the rankings now," she said.
