Sanita Puspure says there's still room for improvement after booking her place in the quarter-finals of the women's single sculls rowing at the Olympics.

The World and European champion finished eight seconds ahead of her nearest rival in winning her heat in Tokyo this morning.

Puspure rated her performance as "okay" and insists she can go faster next week in her bid to win a medal.

"The start could have been better but we will work on it," Puspure said after the race. "It wasn't too hard today but it is going to get harder as it goes along. If I was third it wouldn’t make much difference.

"It was a comfortable win so it was good to get a good race out of the way. Every race I do just brings my psychology up a little bit as well."

But the men's double sculls pair of Phillip Doyle and Ronan Byrne missed out on automatic qualification for Monday's semi-finals.

The 2019 world silver medallists were fourth in their heat and they will back in the water for the repechage tomorrow.

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