YUKI BHAMBRI QUALIFIES FOR QUEEN’S CLUB

Yuki Bhambri continued with his fabulous run and qualified for the Queen’s Club tennis tournament on grass, winning two rounds, in London.

The 25-year-old Yuki who started by dropping the first set against wild card James Ward, dropped nine games in all in the next four sets, in setting up a first round against Milos Raonic.

Rohan Bopanna will open the doubles with Edouard Rger-Vasselin of France against Kevin Anderson and Julien Benneteau.

In the $871,028 WTA event in Birmingham, Ankita Raina went down fighting in three sets to Priscilla Hon of Australia in the first qualifying round. The effort was worth one WTA point and $1,122.

Interestingly, Ankita got into the qualifying draw as an alternate, as Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan, whom she had beaten in the Fed Cup in February in three sets, and who went on to make the French Open quarterfinals, pulled out.

In the Challenger in Ilkley, Prajnesh Gunneswaran gave a walkover to Hiroki Moriya of Japan in the second round, after having beaten Dennis Novikov of US in straight sets.

Ramkumar Ramanathan is the sixth seed in the main draw, and will play Sebastian Ofner of Austria in the first round. In the doubles, Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan partners Austin Krajicek, Purav Raja is seeded third with John Smith of Australia while Sriram Balaji and Vishnu Vardhan is the all-India pair.

Saketh Myneni and Sasi Kumar Mukund reached the third and final qualifying round of the $75,000 Challenger in Fergana, and will play Aslan Karatsev of Russia and Tung-Lin Wu of Chinese Taipei respectively. Sidharth Rawat and Arjun Kadhe lost in the second quaifying round.

Saketh who dismissed the top seed Kaichi Uchida of Japan in the first qualifying round, will partner Vijay Sundar Prashanth in doubles, while Arjun Kadhe joins hands with Alex Lawson of the US.

Prarthana Thombare in partnership with Luksika Kumkhum of Thailand won the doubles title, by beating the top seeds Naomi Broady of Britain and Asia Mukhammad of the US, in the $100,000 ITF women’s tennis tournament in Manchester.

It was the biggest doubles title in the professional circuit for the 23-year-old Prarthana who had won the bronze medal in partnership with Sania Mirza in the Asian Games in Incheon in 2014.

It was the first doubles title of the season, and 21st in her career for Prarthana who has been focusing only on doubles for quite some time, a venture that helped her compete in the Rio Olympics with Sania.

She also has three singles titles in the ITF women’s circuit.
In the ITF men’s Futures final in Colombo, Manish Sureshkumar was beaten 7-5, 6-2 by second seed Alexander Zhurbin of Russia.

The results:

€ 2,116,915 ATP 500, Queen’s Club, London, UK
Qualifying singles (second and final round): Yuki Bhambri bt Taylor Fritz (US) 6-4, 6-2; First round: Yuki Bhambri bt James Ward (GBR) 4-6, 6-1, 6-2.

€ 127,000 Challenger men, Ilkley, UK
Qualifying singles (second round): Hiroki Moriya (Jpn) w.o. Prajnesh Gunneswaran; First round: Prajnesh Gunneswaran bt Dennis Novikov (US) 6-4, 6-2.

$75,000 Challenger men, Fergana, Uzbekistan
Qualifying singles (second round): Saketh Myneni bt Vladyslav Manafov (Ukr) 3-0 (retired); Sasikumar Mukund bt Aziz Dadabaev (Uzb) 6-3, 6-2; Aslan Karatsev (Rus) bt Sidharth Rawat 6-2, 6-4; Tung-Lin Wu (Tpe) bt Arjun Kadhe 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.
First round: Saketh Myneni bt Kaichi Uchida (Jpn) 6-3, 6-4; Sidharth Rawat bt Sagadat Ayap (Kaz) 6-2, 6-2; Arjun Kadhe bt Roman Khassanov (Kaz) 6-3, 6-3; Sasi Kumar Mukund bt Vijay Sundar Prashanth 6-3, 6-4.

$871,028 WTA, Birmingham, UK
Qualifying singles (first round): Priscilla Hon (Aus) bt Ankita Raina 6-3, 3-6, 6-4.

$100,000 ITF women, Manchester, Britain
Doubles (final): Luksika Kumkhum (Tha) & Prarthana Thombare bt Naomi Broady (GBR) & Asia Muhammad (US) 7-6(5), 6-3.

$15,000 ITF men, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Singles (final): Alexander Zhurbin (Rus) bt Manish Sureshkumar 7-5, 6-2.