Yuki Bhambri

[arjun2761]

I think he showed is that he will win futures events as long as he is fit.

So, he can play a couple of the Indian futures on WC and with 1 title and 1 high finish (or 2 titles), he may have enough points (20+) to get into many futures events after that. So, it seems to be that he should mostly use his WCs on ATP events (money) and Challenger events (for points). I think he is optimizing for money at ATP events early as he is likely finding his form (and perhaps assumes that he will lose early in either). Once he finds his form, he can then focus on challengers to gain points and get his ranking up to where he can enter challengers without his PR.

The key for him is to be injury free. It's quite likely he won't have too many issues rising to the challenger level with the quality of his game.

[arjun2761]

Well Ebden took out #39 Millman 6-4, 6-1 in the next round. So, by the transitive property of tennis ranking, Yuki is playing at or better than Millman.

[Sanjay]

Well Ebden took out #39 Millman 6-4, 6-1 in the next round. So, by the transitive property of tennis ranking, Yuki is playing at or better than Millman.

Unfortunately even with applying the transitive property of tennis, it cannot be said that Yuki is better than Millman.

We know that:
Ebden > Yuki
Ebden > Millman

The data is inconclusive and both possibilities could be true:
Yuki > Millman
OR
Yuki < Millman


Only time we can apply this property if:
Yuki > Ebden
Ebden > Millman

Then we can say that Yuki > Millman

[arjun2761]

Aha, but you can if you account for victory margins. Millman won only 5 games while Yuki won 9 games, so you could make the case the Yuki played better than Millman and hence he's better.

[Atithee]

Is somdev better than isner?

[prasen9]

I do not think Yuki is that well off. It takes a lot of money to get world class training and he has not earned that much money.

[PKBasu]

He isn't well-off at all. I think he has barely earned any net income in each of his years on the tour, although the last one (in which he played all the Slams) was a relatively good one -- followed by 2 years of inactivity and no sponsorships now.

[Sanjay]

Aha, but you can if you account for victory margins. Millman won only 5 games while Yuki won 9 games, so you could make the case the Yuki played better than Millman and hence he's better.

OK, I will agree with you on this as a tie-break decision!

[Sanjay]

He isn't well-off at all. I think he has barely earned any net income in each of his years on the tour, although the last one (in which he played all the Slams) was a relatively good one -- followed by 2 years of inactivity and no sponsorships now.

Here are the numbers

[prasen9]

He may have some savings from 2017, 2018, 2019 but first, they have a lot of travel expenses, and then there are taxes that take a large chunk. Then, you have training fees and living and training expenses for two years without income. So, he is possibly tight. I know he may have had endorsements paying him some amounts over and above these. But, still.

[PKBasu]

He isn't well-off at all. I think he has barely earned any net income in each of his years on the tour, although the last one (in which he played all the Slams) was a relatively good one -- followed by 2 years of inactivity and no sponsorships now.

Here are the numbers

Thanks for helping me to make my point! International travel would have resulted in very modest (sometimes zero) net earnings in all years of Yuki's career except 2018.

[PKBasu]

It looks as if Yuki has decided to take the high-risk approach to reviving his singles career. He will play mainly ATP tour qualifiers, including Slams and Masters events. (This could have been a more viable strategy had he begun his injury break 6 weeks earlier, when his ranking was still inside 100; with a PR of 127, he will have to play qualifiers in the Slams too). Even in terms of money, the 12 tournaments will earn him only about US$100K, unless he starts winning. But, given how he played at Singapore, he may well be at a level that'll enable him to win some matches at the ATP tour qualifiers. He has revealed that he was able to practice for a couple of days, but then had to spend the last two days before his match in quarantine (awaiting the decision whether he would be allowed to play singles, having coming into contact with Jeevan). That he was able to be competitive against an in-form Ebden despite the lack of practice in the 2 preceding days has probably enthused him about his chances. With this approach, he earns better money for each match than he would playing Challengers and (especially) Futures, but he reduces his probability of earning points. It is a higher-risk approach, for sure.

On the other hand, he was willing to play doubles at the Futures level, so he is clearly using Doubles as a fall-back option. I expect that he will seek to play doubles quite often at the ATP level too, although he will be willing to play Futures and Challenger doubles whenever possible. My inference from his playing schedule is that, if after 12 tournaments with his PR, Yuki hasn't returned to the top-100 in singles, he will gradually (if not completely) shift to doubles. It is unfortunate that he has made this implicit decision, but let us hope that the high-risk approach pays off and he begins to win points at the ATP qualifiers. I suspect that if he qualifies into 1 or 2 ATP tour events, others might be willing to give him wildcards (even into qualifiers), which will lengthen the number of tournaments he can play with his PR. I must say it was surprising that Singapore did n't give him a wildcard. Yuki has never really had much luck with the efficient management of his career.

[sameerph]

I think he did not anticipate ( rightly so) that main draw cut at Singapore would go do much down. So, he entered with his PR in singles draw way out. He would have surely got a wild card if he had stayed out but since he made it in on PR, they had to give it to others who could not make it based on their ranking.

[RohitG]

3 slams, Singapore and Dubai and that gives him 7 more tournaments for PR usage. Add the constraint of surface. Mostly he will go for hard courts. Entering bigger tournaments is a better route financially. If he can get into the 500s and 1000s, that's good money even for qualifiers. Say you win a round or 2, there's also a chance to make it as an LL into the main draw.

[prasen9]

The top tournaments give the best money and points per match. Given his injury history, he possibly cannot play a whole lot of matches a year. So, optimizing things by choosing the best money/points per match options makes sense. If he does not win very many singles matches and his ranking tanks, he can always play futures or challengers and come up then if he so chooses. I like this strategy.