New Delhi: Top seed Yuki Bhambri and Vishnu Vardhan are headed for a possible title clash as they breezed into the semi-finals of the ITF Futures event after scoring easy victories against their respective rivals, who failed to play to their potential, here on Thursday.
Yuki, ranked 202, overwhelmed Karunuday Singh 6-0, 6-3 in one hour and 18 minutes while Vishnu dumped second seed Jeevan Nedunchezhian 6-3, 6-2 in one hour and 19 minutes.
Jeevan was very erratic and his game was full of unforced errors which made the job easy for Vishnu, who was again solid. Left-handed Jeevan relies a lot on his forehand but he could not use his most important weapon effectively.
Vishnu will now fight it out with third seed N Sriram Balaji, who battled past Taipei's Jui-Chen Hung 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 in a gruelling two hours and 35 minutes contest.
Yuki will take on fifth seed German Torsten Wietoska, who ended the run of Sidharth Rawat 6-2, 6-3.
Yuki had lost all three matches to Karunuday before and they squared off today against each other after two years.
Yuki showed that he has graduated to next level as he controlled the game amazingly. His serve, range of shots, intensity with which he played made him a delight to watch.
Karunuday, who is a much better player than what he showed on Thursday, failed to play his game as he tried to hit his shots too hard and missed out on execution.
He had shots but not consistency to challenge the class of Yuki, who hardly missed a thing. He broke Karunuday in an engrossing opening game with a stunning backhand winner on third breakpoint and never looked back.
There was a bit of fight in the second set but Yuki was good enough to negotiate anything thrown at him. Karunuday, coached by Paul Dale, was gracious in accepting that Yuki was playing much better tennis but also promised a better fight the next time he plays Yuki.
"Yuki played solid and I didn't that's it," was his curt reply when asked to describe the match.
"He is playing his best tennis. His confidence is quite high after winning tournaments." Asked if he was trying too much, he said,"I had to take a few chances. I had no choice."
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