In every aspiring tennis player’s career, there comes a stage when he has to make the transition from being the hunter to the hunted. Yuki Bhambri is now at that stage.
True, as and when he enters the initial rounds of the Grand Slams he will still be the hunter. But at tournaments such as this, the $50,000 KPIT ATP Challenger, he is the one being hunted. Against World No. 319, Nikola Milojevic on Wednesday, Bhambri almost slipped, before recovering to win 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 to enter the last eight.
“If you meet a higher-ranked player, you play a lot freely,” he said after the win. “Especially when you are the underdog and gunning for players above you. That’s what happened [today].”
Right through the match, he constructed the points well. He moved Milojevic end-to-end, opened up the courts and often employed the old one-two, a wide serve and a forehand long-line. But the execution, as he admitted later, wasn’t up to the mark.
From being down 3-1 in the first set, he did well to get back to 4-4. But the way he conceded the decisive break to 5-4, by missing three sitters, is the sort of thing he would like to avoid.
“I made my life tougher,” he said. “I gifted games away and played a poor first set.”
Elsewhere there wasn’t much cheer for the Indian contingent as Sumit Nagal, Vishnu Vardhan, Sanam Singh, Prajnesh Gunneswaran and Ramkumar Ramanathan all lost.
THE RESULTS: Second round: Yuki Bhambri bt Nikola Milojevic (Srb) 4-6, 6-2, 6-4; Ilya Ivashka (Blr) bt Sumit Nagal 7-5, 6-3; James Ward (G.Br) bt Vishnu Vardhan 3-6, 6-3, 6-4; Alexander Kudryavtsev (Rus) bt Sanam Singh 6-4, 6-2; Adrian Menendez-MacEiras (Esp) bt Ramkumar Ramanathan 7-6 (6), 7-6 (5); Ti Chen (Tpe) bt Prajnesh Gunneswaran 6-7 (4), 6-1, 6-1; Evgeny Donskoy (Rus) bt Germain Gigounon (Bel) 6-4, 6-3.
Doubles: Quarterfinals: Maximilian Neuchrist (Aut) & Divij Sharan bt Milojevic (Srb) & Ramkumar 6-3, 6-2; Saketh Myneni & Sanam bt Gigounon & Yannick Mertens (Bel) 6-2, 6-3; Gerard Granollers (Esp) & Menendez-Maceiras w/o Nagal & Vishnu Vardhan; Kudryavtsev & Purav Raja bt Chen & Michal Konecny (Fra) 6-4, 7-5.