YUKI BHAMBRI IN QUARTERFINALS OF SURBITON CHALLENGER

Third seed Yuki Bhambri overcame stiff resistance from Alex Bolt with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-1 victory in the pre-quarterfinals of the 127,000 Challenger tennis tournament in Surbiton, Britain, on Thursday.

In the quarterfinals, Yuki will play sixth seed Alex Di Minaur of Australia.

Ramkumar Ramanathan who had tamed second seed Jordan Thompson of Austrlaia in the first round will play his pre-quarterfinal against Sergiy Stakhovskiy of Ukraine.
Ramkumar put up a good fare in the doubles in partnership with Jurgen Melzer of Austria before being beaten in the quarterfinals by the second seeds Nicholas Monroe and John-Patrick Smith.

Top seeds Divij Sharan and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi found Lleyton Hewitt and Alex Bolt too hot in their quarterfinals, while the all-Indian pair of Sriram Balaji and Vishnu Vardhan were tamed by Ken Skupski and Neal Skupski.

The Skupskis did not face a single breakpoint on way to a 6-4, 7-6(4) victory against the Indian pair.

National champion Mahak Jain, who had qualified into the main draw of the $25,000 ITF women’s event in Portugal, outplayed another qualifier, Luniuska Delgado of Venezuela, to reach the pre-quarterfinals.

In a similar women’s event in Thailand, Karman Kaur Thandi made the quarterfinals, while Pranjala Yadlapalli lost in three sets.

The results:

€127,000 Challenger men, Surbiton, UK
Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Yuki Bhambri bt Alex Bolt (Aus) 6-4, 3-6, 6-1.

Doubles (quarterfinals): Alex Bolt & Lleyton Hewitt (Aus) bt Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi (Pak) & Divij Sharan 6-3, 6-3; Ken Skupski & Neal Skupski (GBR) bt Sriram Balaji & Vishnu Vardhan 6-4, 7-6(4); Nicholas Monroe (US) & John-Patrick Smith (Aus) bt Jurgen Melzer (Aut) & Ramkumar Ramanathan 4-6, 7-6(3), 10-2.

$15,000 ITF men, Harare, Zimbabwe
Singles (first round): Niki Poonacha bt Anirudh Chandrasekar 6-4, 7-5; Jorge Blanco Guadalupe (Esp) bt Aryan Goveas 6-0, 7-5; Courtney John Lock (Zim) bt Dhruv Sunish 7-6(0), 6-3; Anurag Nenwani bt Muzingaye
Dickson Andile Sibanda (Zim) 6-2, 6-3.

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Anirudh Chandrasekar & PC Vignesh bt Darko Bojanovic (BIH) & Frederik Press (Ger) 6-3, 5-7, [10-3]; Jorge Blanco Guadalupe (Esp) & Michael-Ray Paillares-Gonzalez (Dom) bt Jayesh Pungliya & Dhruv Sunish 6-2, 6-3.

$25,000 ITF women, Obidos, Portugal
Singles (first round): Mahak Jain bt Luniuska Delgado (Ven) 6-1, 6-1.

$25,000 ITF women, Hua Hin, Thailand
Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Karman Kaur Thandi bt Aleksandrina Naydenova (Bul) 7-6(4), 6-4; Jacqueline Cako (US) bt Pranjala Yadlapalli 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Doubles (quarterfinals): Nicha Lertpitaksinchai & Nudnida Luangnam (Tha) bt Tamachan Momkoonthod (Tha) & Pranjala Yadlapalli 4-6, 7-6(5), [12-10].

$15,000 ITF women, Antalya, Turkey
Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Mayuka Aikawa (Jpn) & Tayla Whitehouse (Aus) bt Stephanie Belovukovic (Aus) & Jennifer Luikham 6-3, 6-2.