Jain, Anand in final qualifying round

India's Siddharth Jain and Chetan Anand won their third round singles qualifying matches in Seville, Spain, and are just one step from the main draw of the World badminton championships, starting later in the day.

Jain, the highest ranked qualifier in the draw, defeated Nicolas Escartin of Spain 15-9, 15-7 while Chetan was a 15-10, 15-5 victor over Wouter Claes of Belgium.

The mixed doubles pairs of V Diju and P V V Lakshmi and Jaseel Ismail and Madhumita Bisht also entered the final qualifying rounds with wins over their respective opponents.

Jain, India's number three, was far from impressive in his defeat of Escartin. Despite the relatively comfortable- looking scoreline, Jain looked sluggish and out of sorts throughout the 40-minute encounter. He hardly got his strokes right and had to rely on playing the waiting game to win his points against the Spaniard, ranked 179th in the world.

"The shuttles are fast here and it is a bit difficult for me to adjust. Plus, I'm just feeling my way into the tournament," said Jain, who is just back from knee injury.

He now needs to win a potentially tough final round encounter against Japan's Kazuhiro Shimogami in order to qualify for the main draw.

Chetan was much more composed in his win against Claes, a left-hander, ranked 351st in the world. Chetan, who played in the mixed doubles in Sudirman Cup, ran up a 9-3 lead in the opening game before some careless play allowed the Belgian number four to close the game to 10-12.

But that was as close as he would get. Once the Indian, ranked 115th in the world, had taken the opening game, the small sprinkling of spectators was given a treat of artistic badminton in the second, where Claes was often left going one way while the shuttle went the other.

The Indian though faces a tough opponent in the final qualifying round where is up against 20-year-old Boonsak Polsana of Thailand, a man who defeated world number four Chen Hong of China and former top-five player Wong Choon Hann of Malaysia in the recently-concluded Asia Cup.

In the mixed doubles, Diju and Lakshmi registered an exciting 17-15, 17-14 win over Mike Beres and Kara Solmundson of Canada to move to the final round. The Indian pair, who had won a hard-fought opening game, were trailing 3-14 in the second before staging a remarkable recovery and win 14 points in succession.

Jaseel and Bisht made it to the final round by defeating the pair Finnish pair of Timo Eskelinen and Nina Sarnesto 15-13, 15-7.

Meanwhile, in the women's section, four-time national champion Manjusha Kanwar is the only Indian in with a chance to make it to the main draw.

On a day when both Jwala Gutta and B R Meenakshi made their exits in the second round of the qualifying event, Manjusha registered a comfortable 11-1, 11-2 victory over Slovenian Maya Tvrdy to make it to final round.

The experienced Indian was never in trouble against an opponent ranked 65 places higher, at number 210 in the IBF rankings and she completed her rout in under 20 minutes.

In the men's doubles, Jaseel Ismail and Markose Bristow registered a comfortable 15-8, 15-10 win over Vitali Shmakov and Andrei Konakh of Belarus. They have a tough final round encounter against Koreans Lin Jae Jin and Chung Jae Sung later on Monday night.

Just after Manjusha's victory though, two other Indians, Jwala Gutta and B R Meenakshi bowed out to virtual unknowns. Jwala's lack of mobility was exploited to the hilt by Estonian Kati Tolmoff, who won 11-3, 8-11, 11-7.

Meenakshi played a nightmarish match against Kara Solmundson of Canada, to lose 11-13, 1-11. The Bangalore-based girl was outplayed by the aggressive Canadian and though she did manage to spark hopes of a recovery in the opening game, at 10-all after trailing 1-9, she was unable to keep up the pace and caved in.

The women's doubles pair of Madhumita Bisht and PVV Lakshmi was another casualty, going down tamely to the Chinese Taipei pair of Ku Pei and Chou Chia 6-15, 3-15.