Dressed in a fiery orange t-shirt, top-ranked Indian Yuki Bhambri breezed through his second round Chennai Open Challenger clash with a 6-2, 6-3 thrashing of Sidharth Rawat amidst blazing hot conditions at the SDAT tennis courts in Nungambakkam on Wednesday.
Bhambri was at his clinical best and broke Rawat's serve in the third and seventh game to pocket the first set with a sublime backhand down the line winner. Even though Rawat is around the same age as Bhambri, the wide gulf between the players was evident in the quality of play.
The second-seeded Bhambri got off to a flyer in the second set by breaking Rawat's serve and raced to a 3-1 lead in no time. He gave his inexperienced counterpart no room to stage a comeback and broke his serve again in the ninth game to earn two match points. Rawat managed to save the first but sent the next one long as Bhambri collected a comfortable win in just 57 minutes. He will play Japan's Yasutaka Uchiyama in a last-eight clash.
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Top seed Jordan Thompson had a walk in the park as he demolished Thailand's Wishaya Trongcharoenchaikul 6-3, 6-2 to cruise into the quarterfinals. He next faces Danilo Petrovic on Thursday.
Kadhe ousted
Arjun Kadhe's winning run came to a screeching halt as fourth seed Mohamed Safwat sent him packing with a 6-4, 6-2 win. The Egyptian broke Kadhe's serve in the seventh game to go 4-3 and kept the momentum going to seal the first set 6-4.
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The Indian seemed to have lost his rhythm in the second set as Safwat broke his serve twice and won four consecutive games from 2-2 to clinch the tie in 69 minutes.
The results (pre-quarterfinals, Indians unless mentioned):
Singles: Jordan Thompson (Aus) bt Wishaya Trongcharoenchaikul (Tha) 6-3, 6-2; Duckhee Lee (Kor) bt S. Abhinav Sanjeev 6-2, 6-4; Mohamed Safwat (Egy) bt Arjun Kadhe 6-4, 6-2; Danilo Petrovic (Srb) bt Enrique Lopez Perez (Esp) 6-4 (retires) ; Yasutaka Uchiyama (Jpn) bt Cem Ilkel (Tur) 6-4, 7-5; Antoine Escoffier (Fra) bt Gerard Granollers (Esp) 7-6 (2), 6-2; Pedro Martinez (Esp) bt Lucas Catarina (Mon) 7-6 (2), 6-0; Yuki Bhambri bt Sidharth Rawat 6-2, 6-3.
Men’s Doubles results:
[1] Sanchai Ratiwatana (THA) & Sonchat Ratiwatana (THA) bt. [WC] Kunal Anand (IND) & Anvit Bendre (IND) 6-0, 6-2; Cem Ilkel (TUR) & Danilo Petrovic (SRB) bt. Prajnesh Gunneswaran (IND) & N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth (IND) 6-4, 2-6, [10-4];
[4] Luca Margaroli (SUI) & Saketh Myneni (IND) bt. Tuna Altuna (TUR) & Mohamed Safwat (EGY) 6-7(4), 6-3, [13-11]; [2] N. Sriram Balaji (IND) & Vishnu Vardhan (IND) bt. Alessandro Bega (ITA) & Kimmer Coppejans (BEL) 7-5, 6-3.
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