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Yuki Bhambri beat Ramkumar Ramanathan in the battle of India’s top two men’s singles players to qualify for the main draw of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California on Wednesday. The ninth seeded Bhambri made short work of his 20th seeded compatriot to notch up a 6-4, 6-2 win in just 1 hour 24 minutes.
This was Bhambri’s third win over his junior compatriot in their four meetings. Yuki won both their clashes last year at the Chennai Open and the Pune Challenger.
Bhambri faces Mahut in Round 1
The former junior Australian Open champion now faces fellow qualifier Nicolas Mahut in the first round of the main draw at the season's opening ATP Masters 1000 tournament. The winner will take on the ninth seeded Lucas Pouille, who has been in terrific form this season and has won one title, besides reaching the final of two other.
Even though the 110th ranked Bhambri did not drop a set against the 135th ranked Ramanathan, he struggled on his second serve, producing five double faults. Bhambri made up for it with his fantastic returns that saw him convert five out of his six break point chances.
In contrast, the 23-year-old Ramanathan could only make use of just two of his 11 opportunities. The first set, especially, showed the difference between the two. While the senior Indian was flawless on break point conversion with three out of three, Ramanathan was a poor 2/9 (22%).
Yuki finished with a total of 41 out of 76 points, whereas the Chennai player bagged only 35.
The India No. 1 thus continues his good run since the start of the year. He had qualified for the Australian Open, losing to the former Australian Open runner-up Marcos Baghdatis and then followed it up with a runner-up finish at the Chennai Challenger.
Bhambri, who reached a career-high 88th in 2015, has been climbing his way back after being out of action for a major part of the 2016 season due to an elbow injury. His ranking had plummeted to below 500 because of that hiatus.
