The Caesarean pair, who were on the wrong side of 2-0 defeats in the mixed doubles and singles draws on Tuesday, edged past Ugandans Brian Kasirye and Edwin Ekiring at the Carrara Sports Arena, with just two points separating the two nations in both sets.
It would be a brilliant achievement to reach the quarter-finals
Matthew Bignell
Bignell admitted the Islanders could have performed better in their 23-21, 21-19 triumph, but last night he held hopes that they would improve enough to see off Sri Lankan duo Sachin Dias and Buwaneka Goonethilleka in round two.
‘It was a very tight game, so we’re obviously really happy to get through,’ he said.
‘We didn’t play to our best – we will have to play a lot better than we did today to beat Sri Lanka.
‘We haven’t seen them play, but going by Sri Lanka’s results in general we know they’re going to be quite tough. They have a world ranking of something like 250, but hopefully we can pull through.
‘It would be a brilliant achievement to reach the quarter-finals, but one step at a time.’
Hutchings and Elise Dixon lost 21-10, 21-11 to Dias and his mixed doubles partner Thilini Hendahewa in Jersey’s final game of the day, after Dixon suffered a 2-0 defeat to England’s Chloë Birch in the last-32 of the women’s singles.
