London Olympics bronze medallist Saina Nehwal secured a straight game win over Ukraine's Maria Ulitina to storm into the women's singles quarterfinals of the USD 170,000 Barcelona Spain Masters here on Thursday.
Saina, who is facing a race against time to qualify for her fourth Olympics, brushed aside Maria 21-10 21-19 in the second round to set up a last-eight clash with Thailand's third seed Busanan Ongbamrungphan, who has beaten the Indian twice in the last two encounters.
Sameer Verma also made it to the last eight with a hard-fought 21-14 16-21 21-15 win over Germany's Kai Schaefer. He will face either Thailand's Kunlavut Vitidsarn or Ireland's Nhat Nguyen in the men's singles quarterfinals.
However, Kidambi Srikanth's wretched run continued as he went down 6-21 17-21 to fellow Indian Ajay Jayaram, dashing his hopes of qualifying for the Tokyo Games.