Nhat Nguyen produced an excellent St Patrick's Day performance at the All England Open on Wednesday to beat world number 13 Srikanth Kidambi.
Ireland's Nguyen made the perfect start against the Indian eighth seed in the men's singles round-of-32 match, winning the first game 21-11, before Kidambi responded by taking the second 21-15.
But the 20-year-old Dubliner emerged victorious as he took the final game 21-12 to advance to the round-of-16.
In the mixed doubles, Sam Magee and Chloe Magee will take on Malaysian pair Soon Huat Goh and Shevon Jemie Lai on Wednesday evening. However fellow Irish duo Rachael Darragh and Paul Reynolds were beaten by England's Lauren Smith and Marcus Ellis 21-12, 21-11.
Reynolds was also involved the men's doubles alongside Joshua Magee - they lost to England's Chris Langridge and Ellis 21-14, 21-13.
All England matches today. First up for Ireland 🇮🇪 Nhat Nguyen against number 8 seed Srikanth Kidambi 🇮🇳 💪☘️ pic.twitter.com/JaB5742IaL
— Badminton Ireland (@irishbadminton) March 17, 2021
The All England Open is taking place with a full complement of players after pushing back the tournament's start time to allow the retesting of some samples for Covid-19.
The world's top 160 best singles players and doubles pairings have gathered in Birmingham to contest the season's first World Tour Super 1000 event.
The Badminton World Federation (BWF) had said in an earlier statement that play would begin at 2pm instead of 9am to allow the samples to be retested after a number of "inconclusive" and positive Covid-19 results among participating teams.
The retests were carried out after doubts were raised about the accuracy of the orginal batches of tests submitted by Badminton England.
"The outcome of the retest was deemed accurate and appropriate to use by Public Health England today," the BWF said in a statement.
"All individuals who had returned an inconclusive or positive test previously are now negative for Covid-19 and cleared to resume their participation in the tournament."
The Super 1000 tournament will see the return of world number one Kento Momota to elite-level competition after a car crash in Malaysia last year.
