Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand, who won bronze at the World Championships this year, is looking to win the Japan Masters title for the first time. | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma

The Indian pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand got the better of Hinata Suzuki and Nao Yamakita from Japan to sail into the second round of Japan Masters 2026, at the the Kumamoto Prefectural Gymnasium, here on Tuesday.

Treesa and Gayatri won the first game 21-17 before winning the round-of-32 contest 21-14 in 42 minutes.

In the men’s doubles, Hariharan Amsakarunan and Arjun M.R. got a walkover in the round of 32 as former world champions from Malaysia, Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik, retired during the first game, with the score 11-6 in favour of the Indian pair.

Earlier in the day, the mixed doubles pair of Dhruva Kapila and Radhika Sharma were knocked out in the qualification round, losing in straight games to Chen Zhi Yi and Francesca Corbett from the United States of America (USA).

Kapila and Radhika stayed well into the match until 8-8 in the first game but the American pair, leading 11-9 at the break, kept on building its lead to take the game 21-16.

The second game proved to be much tighter, with the Indians coming back into the contest at 14-14. From here, Chen and Francesca pulled away to win the match 21-15.