Chennai, February 12 India's leading mixed doubles pair of Manush Shah and Diya Chitale, and young Ankur Bhattacharjee, secured contrasting victories to advance in the WTT Star Contender Chennai 2026 tournament here on Thursday.
Manush and Diya, who recently won the WTT Contender Muscat 2026, faced a tough challenge from Korean qualifiers, saving three match points before ultimately winning 3-2 (10-12, 11-6, 12-10, 5-11, 12-10) in 42 minutes to reach the quarterfinals.
Qualifier Ankur defeated Frenchman Florian Bourrassaud 3-1 (11-5, 11-8, 3-11, 11-9). He will face 14th seed Kazuhiro Yoshimura of Japan in the second round.
Ankur also advanced to the mixed doubles quarterfinals alongside Swastika Ghosh after they defeated the Korean combination of Park Gyuhyeon and Kim Nayeong 3-2 (11-9, 3-11, 11-8, 6-11, 11-9).
They will face fourth seeds Harmeet Desai and Yashaswini Ghorpade, who defeated Darius Movileanu and Andrea Dragoman of Romania 11-8, 11-4, 11-7.
In the other quarterfinals, Manush and Diya will face Indian wild cards Payas Jain and Syndrela Das, who defeated Kazakhstan's Iskender Kharki and Sarvinoz Mirkadirova 11-8, 11-6, 11-7 in their first-round clash.
Snehit Suravajjula fought back from a 1-2 deficit to beat Divyansh Srivastava 3-2 (9-11, 11-8, 6-11, 11-7, 11-6) to set up a second-round clash against Japanese 13th seed Mizuki Oikawa.
Harmeet also advanced to the second round with a convincing 3-1 (11-8, 12-10, 9-11, 11-8) win over Iulian Chirita of Romania.
In the women's singles Round-of-64 clash, 15-year-old Divyanshi Bhowmick put up a good fight against WTT Feeder Series Vadodara 2026 winner Ryu Hanna of Korea but ended up on the losing side with a score of 3-1 (6-11, 11-6, 11-8, 11-5).
Later in the day, Diya defeated wild card Anusha Kutumbale 3-0 (11-8, 12-10, 11-8) to advance to the second round.
