Scott Evans followed up Ireland’s first ever Olympic win in badminton by booking a place in the last-16 after a 2-1 victory over Brazilian Ygor Coelho de Oliveira.
The Dubliner, who claimed Ireland's first-ever Olympic win in the sport by defeating Germany's Marc Zwiebler on Friday, overcame the local favourite after he tied the match 1-1 in the second game to finish strongly in the Group K encounter to take the decider 21-8.
He will now move into the knock-out stages on Monday but admitted he found the atmosphere a challenge as the raucous home crowd tried to encourage the local favourite to victory.
"Playing with almost a full crowd against a good player, it was difficult...The atmosphere was absolutely insane, something I had never experienced before," he told RTÉ Sport.
"I had never experienced booing before. It was different and I had to adapt to that. I was really struggling at times."
Evans displayed no signs of nerves and got the better of the early rallies to lead 6-2 in the opening game.
The 28-year-old looked completely at ease against the local favourite and had the luxury of 13 game points in the opener as he eased to a 21-8 win.
Oliveira, however, began the second game at a blistering pace and Evans had no answer to his power shots, deadly accuracy and excellent movement around the court.
The Brazilian claimed eight successive points to take an 11-2 lead with Evans guilty of a number of uncharacteristic unforced errors.
Evans improved after the short break to halt the 19-year-old’s momentum with aggressive net play and fought back to 17-15 down, threatening to wrap up the contest with a game to spare.
However, the Brazilian's footwork came to the fore and he ensured there would be a deciding game when he saw off the battling Evans 21-19.
The three-time Olympian had the bit between his teeth early on in the deciding game in the pressure cooker environment of the Rio arena and took a commanding lead to put his opponent on the back foot.
The Irishman soon enjoyed a 10-5 advantage as the fading Oliveira struggled to stay in contention.
An instant review went in Oliveira’s favour to cut the deficit to 12-7, but the local only won one more point as the Irish number one prepares for unchartered territory in the last-16 where he is likely to meet the world number four Viktor Axelsen from Denmark.
Scott Evans through to round of 16 #rterio2016 https://t.co/j0AjsdtDsr
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) August 14, 2016
