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Bhambri minibreak at 1-1, with a risky volley that worked. 2-1
But minibroken back with a dicey call on one that seemed to kiss the line. 2-2. Holds 3-2.
Minibreak to make it 4-2. Excellent play (change of direction on 4th shot) to make it 5-2. (Two minibreaks).
6-2, good rally. 6-3, after an unforced error from Yuki. Terrific service return from Yuki finishes the match, as Zapata nets it. 7-3

[R1] 2-Yuki Bhambri (IND, 112) d. Bernabe Zapata Miralles (ESP, 271) 61 76(3)

Quite shocking that only 1 Indian has beaten a non-Indian in the tournament this year (in both singles and doubles; in doubles Balaji/Vishnu beat this same guy Bernabe and partner).
We are assured of one Indian in the QF, as Yuki plays Sid in R2.

The only other Indian left in singles, Arjun Kadhe, plays 4-Mohamed Safwat (EGY, 218) in R2. A good chance for an upset!

PKB, 19 year old Abhinav Sanjeev has got further lucky as his opponent retired in the second set.

[R1] (Q) Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam (IND,1367) d. Ivan Nedelko (RUS,275) 36 54 retd.

To his credit Abhinav was putting up a good fight against a top 300 player, it seems.

So, we have 4 Indians in second round.

Good win in the end for Yuki although the second set performance seems a bit inconsistent after a great first set. It is great though that he was able to claw his way back from 3-5 and set point to finish the match in straights sets.

Abhinav seems to have a magic wand! Retirement by opponent in R1 (after losing the first set, and leading narrowly in the second). A full walkover in Q3. But before that he beat the American Hochwalt (who has been a regular in India over the years, and was once ranked 532), and beat Aryan Goveas in Q2 (although Aryan too retired at 1-4 in the second after losing the first set tiebreaker, which I would say is an unsporting retirement).

The other teenager, Manish Sureshkumar lost in straight sets.

[R1] (WC) Manish Sureshkumar (IND,876) l. Danilo Petrovic (SRB,250) 46 26

Overall, I would say these 3 teenagers- Manish Sureshkumar, Nitin Kumar Sinha and Abhinav Sanjeev it owas a good exposure and they put up a decent account of themselves. For the other teenager- Daskhineshwar Suresh it was too early for him to be given a wild card into main draw.

Our singles second round match-ups-

[R2] (Q) Arjun Kadhe (IND,567) vs. (4) Mohmed Safwat (EGY,238)
[R2] (Q) Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam (IND,1365) vs. (2) Duck Hee Lee (KOR,206)
[R2] (2) Yuki Bhambri (IND,112) vs. (Q) Siddharth Rawat (IND,533)

So, all 3 of our qualifers have made it to the second round. Unfortunately, 2 of our seeds - Sumit and Prajnesh got upset and Balaji lost to the 4th qualifier from Thailand which has made it a bad tournament so far for us.

Glad to note the progress of Abhinav. A very quite, humble kid with a big game. Big serve, heavy ground strokes, comes to the net often... wish him some more luck

prasen9 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2018 2:13 pm

Saniapower wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2018 10:57 am Sumit has not been serious with his tennis for last couple of months.

What happened to him?

He thinks he is a rockstar.
Another one is Saketh Mayeni...very casual approach...is he playing a tennis match or walking in the park!
But Arjun Kadhe is damn serious about his tennis and he is also proactive.

Saketh always appears to be taking it easy -- his body language never tells us how hard he is pushing. I have seen him play amazing rallies with this approach.

True, Saki is always like that even when he is playing well.

Similarly, Sumit behaving like a rockstar is also part of his behavioral trait.It is ok as long he keeps performing. Even Virat Kohli appears arrogant many a times. But, is anyone complaining ?

PKBasu wrote: ↑Tue Feb 13, 2018 8:32 am Zapata Mirall has a very big serve, but Yuki's service returns are superb too -- so he took a 0-40 lead (3 BPs), Zapata managed to fight back to Deuce, it was AD-Bhambri three times before Yuki finished it. 5-5 in the second set.
Yuki holds easily with some excellent play (including one ace). 6-5.

Couldn't gauge the serve speed on my phone screen but Yuki appeared to have no trouble returning his opponents serve and the opponent had more double faults than aces. In fact, Yuki twice had 0-40 on the Spaniard's serve but in each case ended up losing the game which made the second set a much tougher slog than it should have been.

The one note of concern in the second set (and I didn't watch the first set) was Yuki generally lost the longer rallies (say 8 shots or more) often by hitting long or wide continuing a pattern that was apparent in his match with Baghdatis. Fortunately, he won most of the shorter points quite easily here but this is an area he has to improve to win against top-100 players...

Ram wrote: ↑Tue Feb 13, 2018 9:54 am Glad to note the progress of Abhinav. A very quite, humble kid with a big game. Big serve, heavy ground strokes, comes to the net often... wish him some more luck

Thanks for the insights, Ram. Always good to hear from a tennis parent who is on the ground following these players much more closely than we armchair followers are able to do.

Abhinav has grabbed his chances superbly here. He had 3 ATP points (from reaching R16 at three separate Futures in India, Spain and Sri Lanka), but has now picked up 9 points (3 from qualifying in and 6 from making R2). And he will jump into the top-1000 next week as a result (he is 942 in the live rankings). But he has basically been playing qualifying rounds at Futures and Challengers (in India, SL, Thailand) over the past half year, so this is a huge leap for him. That he has held his own at this level is very impressive. But consolidating on this tournament will be the real challenge for him. He will need to push hard at the Futures level, and I hope there is a good menu of those available in India and the neighbourhood over the next few months.

Arjun Kadhe is at a career high of 523, Sid Rawat is at 498 (just below his career high of 496). Yuki is at 113 in the live rankings.

What a terrible tournament for us.

Only a Yuki win would make it worthwhile.

Yuki wins in straight sets and Abhinav lost in straight sets.

[R2] (Q) Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam (IND,1365) l. (2) Duck Hee Lee (KOR,206) 26 46

[R2] (2) Yuki Bhambri (IND,112) d. (Q) Siddharth Rawat (IND,533) 62 63

Arjun's match on centre court starting now.