Spain's Carolina Marín started her defence of the European Badminton Championships title with a straight game victory ©Getty Images

Top seeds and defending champions Viktor Axelsen and Carolina Marín made light work of their opening singles matches at this year’s European Badminton Championships as they advanced to the last 16 in Kyiv in Ukraine.

After being given byes into the second round, Denmark’s Axelsen and Spain’s Marín faced Milan Ludik of the Czech Republic and Belarus’ Anastasiya Cherniavskaya.

But the pair did not encounter many problems, with Marín thrashing Cherniavskaya 21-2, 21-11 and Axelsen downing Ludik 21-11, 21-12.

Axelsen will now meet Germany’s Max Weisskirchen who overcame Belgium’s Maxime Moreels with a 21-8, 21-8 success.

French eighth seed Thomas Rouxel claimed a 21-15, 21-13 victory over Russian Vladimir Malkov, while fellow countryman Toma Junior Popov, seeded seventh, defeated Alex Lane of England 21-9, 21-13.

The final match of the day saw men's second seed Anders Antonsen in action with the Danish player a comfortable winner 21-18, 21-14 against Kai Schaefer of Germany.

Danish third seed Rasmus Gemke saw off Estonia’s Raul Must 21-13, 21-14 to set up a meeting with Joran Kweekel of The Netherlands who came through a second-round thriller.

Kweekel dropped a closely-fought opening game before storming back to beat Ade Resky Dwicahyo of Azerbaijan 24-26, 21-16, 21-14.

Viktor Axelsen overcame Milan Ludik to reach the last 16 in Kyiv ©Getty Images
Viktor Axelsen overcame Milan Ludik to reach the last 16 in Kyiv ©Getty Images

Dutch fifth seed Mark Caljouw swept aside Austrian Luka Wraber 21-10, 21-11 to reach the last 16 where he will face Sweden’s Felix Burestedt who defeated Israel’s Misha Zilberman 21-18, 21-17.

Ireland’s Nhat Nguyen and Finland’s Kalle Koljonen were among the other players to advance to the last 16 of the men’s singles.

In the women’s singles, Soraya de Visch Eijbergen of The Netherlands teed up a third-round clash with Marín after she beat Lithuania’s Vytaute Fomkinaite 21-11, 21-5.

German third seed Yvonne Li moved through to the last 16 without playing a match after an opening-round bye was followed by the withdrawal of France’s Xuefei Qi.

Sixth seed Line Højmark Kjærsfeldt of Denmark proved too strong against Moldovan Vlada Ginga, winning 21-12, 21-13.

Ukraine’s Natalya Voytsekh will be Kjærsfeldt’s next opponent after she saw off Portugal’s Sonia Goncalves 21-13, 21-7.

Other seeded players to advance in straight games were Turkish fifth seed Neslihan Yiğit, Belgian eighth seed Lianne Tan and Scottish fourth seed Kirsty Gilmour.