Barcelona: 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, former world no. 1 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.