Yuki Bhambri

[Varma]

If he rakes up a decent chunk of points at Miami, he can pretty much travel with Chung for most part of the year. Hanging out with one of the very promising #Nextgen players and practicing with him week in week out will do him a world of good. I am really excited to read all these new updates on Yuki. It's about time those injuries left him alone!

- Varma

[knarayen]

Good that Yuki now has a chance to practice and hopefully train with Chung and Koon. This is a great break for him. Hope he capitalises on this and finds a way to shadow Chung into the top 50!!

Prof

[Sin Hombre]

While this clearly makes sense for Yuki, I don't understand what's in it for Chung. He already had a strong support team even before his breakthrough events in the last 6 months so I doubt it is about Koon's cost.

[PKBasu]

They trained together in Thailand during the winter months. Koon is committed primarily to Chung, but is available to Yuki whenever the two are playing the same tournament. There is no downside for Chung (as he still has first use of Koon), but some upside (in terms of fees) for Koon. And Chung will not necessarily have Yuki as exclusive hitting partner, but still quite a useful one (given that many aspects of his ground game are really very good).

[RohitG]

Isnt Neville Goodwin Hyeon Chung's primary coach? Apparently he is in his main team since 2017 December, plus he's listed officially as Chung's coach on the atp site. From what I gather from Instagram posts is that Chung spent his off season at Koon's academy (along with a lot of Asian players including Yuki)
I didn't see Koon during Chung's games either. So I doubt about that exclusive first choice. The role of Koon in Chung's case isn't clear.

[sameerph]

This is the latest from Yuki in in interview from sportstar -

'These were the best few weeks of my career,' says Bhambri

It does seem like he is not playing Taiwan Challenger and will only return in end April -

For the moment, Yuki was clear that it was not worth pushing his body, as he had been feeling the pain from January, and hopes to return to the professional circuit by the end of April with the Challengers in Korea.

[PKBasu]

SO it is Yen-Hsun Lu that Stephen Koon is committed to, not Chung. That opens the possibility of Yuki teaming up with Lu for doubles occasionally as well -- which would be a good idea.
I do hope that Yuki is able to play the Taipei Challenger -- and THEN take another week or two off. Avoiding qualifiers at Roland Garros would be worth it!

[sameerph]

I guess he is not so hopeful of doing well on clay and so would not mind missing the French open main draw instead of trying to get back too early from injury break with a risk to aggravate the injury.

If that is the case, he might just go for 3 weeks of Korea Challengers on hard courts -2 of them are big ones - $100K and $150K and another $50K. That way he can try to consolidate his Wimbledon main draw appearance but go in with no preparation in French open qualies.

[Rajiv]

If he is planning for 3 challengers in Korea , the last one ends just a week before the French qualies , Yuki would then arrive in time for the FO qualies with no clay court play as all the 3 Korean challengers are on Hard court.

If end April is his plan , he is better off playing just the first 100H in Seoul and then travel for the remaining 2 weeks to Karshi & Uzbekistan where he played in one of them last year , and incidentally both of them are on clay which would provide him valuable clay court practice .

[sameerph]

Just one minor correction. First week of Uzbek Challenger at Karshi is on hard courts. Yuki played and reached SF there last year. Second week at Samarkand in on clay. He surprisingly skipped that last year but I think he previously made a final there. So, yes he can choose to play both or skip Karsh and just play Samarkand on clay after playing 1 week in Seoul.

It is a tricky decision as if he does not do well on clay, he will end up missing Wimbledon main draw cut too as he has points to defend from Karshi SF last year. That is why said he may just not bother about doing well in clay season and try to go for $150K Busan challenger too. The field will be relatively weak as everyone will be rushing to play on clay and lot of points on offer.

[Rajiv]

Yes so many unclear options and once again he has messed up his schedule ,

If he plays all 3 in Korea than zero clay court practice

If he plays 1 Korea & than Central Asia , it would leave him only one Clay court tournament which he might even miss as last year and eventually no clay court tournament play.

And if only 1 in Korea than would need to make a dash half way round the word to Europe and compete in the European Challengers in France as those two weeks you have the Madrid Masters and Italian Open , the European challengers will be flooded with Guys ranked below 60 who couldn't make it to Madrid & Rome and the Challenger field will resemble a 250 like in the ongoing Marbella challenger

[RohitG]

I don't understand the point of playing French qualies if this is the case. In any case you have to play three matches to get a main draw appearance there. If he does that at Taiwan on hard courts, he gets to 101-102 which would get him that main draw appearance, not to forget the increased prize money. The cutoffs are close to 100 but with some withdrawals, I could have said Yuki has a chance to get in with his current ranking itself.. However right now two players below him in the live rankings, Elias and Lajovic are playing in challengers and both are on track to reach the quarters in Le Gosier.

[sameerph]

There are also 2 more weeks where players behind him can add points. Some may be dropping points too but there is only an outside chance that he will make to FO main draw based on his current points tally.

[VReddy]

Based on his experience, I think Yuki is letting his body / energy / comfort (instead of point pressure / money) dictate his schedule which may mean some short term distress but ensures long term peace of mind and one that he feels, gives him his best chance of performing to the best of his ability on the court.

Even if it pays off or doesn't - atleast he knows he did what his body felt was right . Can't find fault with that I feel.

[arjun2761]

the European challengers will be flooded with Guys ranked below 60 who couldn't make it to Madrid & Rome and the Challenger field will resemble a 250 like in the ongoing Marbella challenger

Let's not confuse challengers with ATP level tournaments. The Marbella challenger has only 3 top 100 players (and they are at the lower end of the top 100) and does not by any means resemble any ATP tournament. Of course, clay challengers in Europe are tough because there are a lot of clay court specialists who ply their trade there but the clay ATP tournaments in Europe are even tougher...