India shuttlers had a fruitful day with doubles pairs of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand and Hariharan Amsakarunan and MR Arjun advancing in the Kumamoto Masters Japan 2026 badminton tournament at the Kumamoto Prefectural Gymnasium on Tuesday.
Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand defeated higher-ranked Japanese pair Hinata Suzuki and Nao Yamakita to reach the women’s doubles pre-quarterfinals. The world No. 20 Indian pair beat their 13th-ranked opponents 21-17, 21-14 in 42 minutes in the opening round of the BWF Super 500 badminton tournament.
This was the first meeting between the two pairs. Suzuki and Yamakita, who won the Canada Open earlier this year, finished runners-up at the Denmark Open Super 750 last month.
Treesa and Gayatri, meanwhile, were competing for the first time since their opening-round exit at the French Open last month. The Indian pair found themselves 8-4 down in the opening game before taking control of the contest by winning the next seven points to lead 11-8 at the interval.
Suzuki and Yamakita recovered to trail by a point at 13-12, but Treesa and Gayatri responded by winning three consecutive points and maintained their advantage to close out the opening game.
The second game was a more one-sided affair, with the Indians never allowing their Japanese opponents to gain a foothold. Treesa and Gayatri went into the interval with a seven-point advantage and, despite a late fightback from Suzuki and Yamakita, comfortably sealed the contest in straight games.
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Treesa-Gayatri will next face third seeds and world No. 5 Rin Iwanaga and Kie Nakanishi of Japan in the round of 16. Both pairs are level 1-1 in their head-to-head record. Treesa and Gayatri won their most recent meeting 21-16, 21-12 in the round of 16 at the BWF World Championships in New Delhi earlier this year.
Hariharan and Arjun progress
In men’s doubles, Hariharan Amsakarunan and MR Arjun progressed after third seeds Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia retired hurt from their opening-round match.
The world No. 29 Indians were leading the fourth-ranked Malaysian pair 11-6 when the contest drew to a premature end. Hariharan and Arjun will face the winner of the first-round match between Japan’s Takuro Hoki-Yugo Kobayashi and qualifiers Hung Kuei Chun-Lui Chun Wai of Hong Kong China in the pre-quarterfinals.
Earlier, Dhruv Kapila and Radhika Sharma bowed out from the mixed doubles qualifiers after losing 21-16, 21-15 to the USA’s Chen Zhi Yi and Francesca Corbett.
Lakshya Sen will begin his campaign on Wednesday. Meanwhile, India’s men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty and women’s singles player Malvika Bansod withdrew from the tournament after initially being listed to compete.
