Saina gets easy start at Malaysian Super series

With an eye on the world top-five, Saina Nehwal kicks off her season on Tuesday at the Malaysian Super Series in Kuala Lumpur where the ace Indian shuttler has been handed a relatively easy first-round match against little-known German Nicole Grether.
    
The world number 10 Indian will have to be prepared for tougher challenges later in the tournament as she may come face to face with fourth seed Hongyan Pi in the quarterfinals.
    
Saina had defeated Pi in the round-robin league of the World Super Series Masters Finals here last month.
    
Among the other Indians, Aditi Mutatkar, who is currently world number 36, will take on third seed Chen Wang of Hong Kong.
     
Wang had defeated Saina in the semis of the World Super series Masters finals in another match of the women's single category.
   
Among the men, World number 15 Chetan Anand will start his campaign against Bobby Milroy of Canada, while Arvind Bhatt will take on eighth seed Simon Santoso of Indonesia and P Kashyap will lock horns with third seed Peter Hoeg Gade of Denmark in the first round.
    
Returning to the court after a long injury lay-off Anup Sridhar, will fight it out with local favourite Muhammad Roslin Hashim.
   
In the men's double, the Indian duo of Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas will clash with the local pair of Yao Han Ow and Hong Kheng Yew in the qualifier match.
    
Saina will team up with Canadian Anna Rice to take on local favourites Nairul Suhaida Abdul Latif and Amelia Alicia Anscelly in the first round of women's doubles.
   
Meanwhile, the mixed doubles pair of V Diju and Jwala Gutta will be up against Taiwan's Chieh Min Fang and Wen Hsing Cheng in the first round of the season-opener here.