Rio Olympic gold medal-winning pair Ayaka Takahashi and Misaki Matsutomo eased into the women's doubles quarterfinals of the Yonex Open Japan badminton tournament on Thursday.

The top-seeded pair, ranked No. 1 in the world, needed only 31 minutes for a 21-7, 21-15 win over Taiwan's Chiang Kai-hsin and Hung Shih-hah as Takahashi and Matsutomo returned to action before a home crowd at Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium.

"My body wasn't moving during training camp (before the tournament) but it was better than expected," said Takahashi, who led the attack with powerful smashes.

In the singles competition, Nozomi Okuhara, the defending champion and Rio bronze medalist, and Akane Yamaguchi both advanced to the last eight to set up a rematch of last year's final.

The second-seeded Okuhara, who won her first Super Series title here last year, defeated China's Chen Yufei 21-13, 21-16 and will face Yamaguchi, whom she beat in the quarterfinals in Brazil last month.

"We can do a rematch of the Rio Games in front of Japanese fans. I hope it'll be a match in which both of us will show all we have," Okuhara said.

Yamaguchi, the sixth seed, defeated Bulgarian Linda Zetchiri 21-11, 21-13 in half an hour.

"I played her for the first time and at first couldn't respond to her characteristic strokes. But it was good that I was able to get used to it early on," Yamaguchi said of Zetchiri.

On her next opponent, Okuhara, Yamaguchi said, "I've never beaten her before so I just have to shrug it off and do what I can. I'd like to make it exciting for the fans in Japan."

In men's doubles, Olympic quarterfinalists and fourth seed Kenichi Hayakawa and Hiroyuki Endo got knocked out 21-13, 25-23 by another Japanese pair Hiroyuki Saeki and Ryota Taohata.