Ilkley (Great Britain): Yuki Bhambri saved a match point in a gruelling battle against Peter Polansky before securing a place in the second round of the Aegon Challenger tennis tournament, here Tuesday.
The unseeded Indian playing with protected ranking, edged past the Canadian 6-7(4-7), 7-6(7-9), 6-3 in the opening round of the Euro 1,27,000 grasscourt event.
Yuki was down a match point at 6-7 in the second set tie-breaker before he forced a third set and finally prevailed in the contest after two hours and 35 minutes. Yuki had as many as seven break chances in the opening set against Polansky but could convert none.
With this win, Yuki avenged his defeat against the Canadian in the opening round of the French Open qualifiers. “It was another battle. I had chances to break him in the first set but could not, then I was down in the second set too and saved a match point, so it was up and down. I am happy to be able to pull it off in the end,” Yuki informed.
In doubles, Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan lost his opening round with Sergio Galdos. They lost 6-7(5-7), 6-7(5-7) to Andrei Vasilevski and Hans Podlipnik-Castillo.
Karman loses
Meanwhile in Fergana, Uzbekistan promising women’s player Karman Kaur Thandi was knocked out of the USD 25000 ITF event Tuesday. The seventh seed Karman lost 6-1, 6-7(1-7), 4-6 to Russia’s Elena Rybakina. The Indian, who turned 19 last week, put herself in a great position by taking the first set for the loss of just one game but the Russian (ranked 533) turned it around to shock the higher-ranked player (450).
