The Indian women's doubles pairing of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand started their campaign at the Kumamoto Masters Japan 2026 on Tuesday with a win, reaching the pre-quarterfinals by beating the higher-ranked Japanese pair Hinata Suzuki and Nao Yamakita 21-17, 21-14 in 42 minutes at the Kumamoto Prefectural Gymnasium, ANI reported via Devdiscourse, citing Olympics.com.

Source: ANI via Devdiscourse

It was the Indian pair's first meeting against Suzuki and Yamakita, who are ranked 13th, won the Canada Open this year and finished runners-up at the Denmark Open Super 750 last month. A second report of the match carried the same scoreline and duration.

Source: GyanHiGyan

Treesa and Gayatri will next face third seeds and world number five Rin Iwanaga and Kie Nakanishi of Japan in the round of 16. The two pairs are level 1-1 in their head-to-head record, with the Indians winning their most recent meeting 21-16, 21-12 in the round of 16 at the BWF World Championships in New Delhi earlier this year.

In men's doubles, India's Hariharan Amsakarunan and MR Arjun also advanced to the pre-quarterfinals after third seeds Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia retired hurt when the Indians were leading 11-6 in the opening game.

Earlier, Dhruv Kapila and Radhika Sharma exited the mixed doubles qualifiers, losing 21-16, 21-15 to the USA's Chen Zhi Yi and Francesca Corbett. Lakshya Sen will start his campaign on Wednesday.