New Delhi, April 28 (Inditop) India’s Yuki Bhambri overcame a late onslaught from compatriot Rohan Gajjar to storm into the second round of the $15,000 International Tennis Federation (ITF) tournament at the DLTA complex here Tuesday.
For Yuki, who is Gajjar’s doubles partner here, the 6-4, 7-6(4) victory is his second in successive weeks over him.
The junior Australian Open champion, who had outplayed Gajjar in straight sets last week, continued from where he had left, by taking the first set with breaks in the third and fifth game.
Gajjar showed a spark of his second-set fight back, when he broke the Delhi youngster when he was serving for the set at 5-2 and then held his serve at love.
Though Yuki served the set out, there were signs of desperation in his play as he double-faulted at the set point.
A lapse in concentration saw Yuki making unforced errors and being broken in the fourth game of the second set. He broke back immediately to even things out. Then on the two held their serve to force a tie-break and Yuki prevailed.
“I feel I played him better this time. Rohan came back strong towards the end of the first set and his backhand returns were much better than the last time. But that only brought the best out of me,” Yuki said.
The 16 year-old Indian next plays Indian qualifier Vishal Punna who shocked second seed Yuichi Ito of Japan, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1.
The third seed Pirmin Haenle of Germany, too, is out after retiring from his match against Vijayant Malik, when the Indian was leading 2-0.
Top seed Raven Klaasen, a semi-finalist last week, started off with a straight sets win over Ashutosh Singh beating him 6-3, 7-5.
Sixth seed Vishnu Vardhan showed the door to Belgian Frederic De Fays, 6-2, 6-4 while Vivek Shokeen got the better of wilcard Navdeep Singh 6-4, 6-2.
rounak