Yuki Bhambri starts as firm favourite in Bengaluru Open

Bengaluru: Yuki Bhambri, who is fresh from his victory in Pune, starts as a firm favourite in the US $ 100,000 Bengaluru Open that kicks off at the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association here from Monday. However, the 25-year- old has to overcome a stiff competition before he enacts an encore at the fast paced courts of KSLTA.

The main competition will come from the top seed Blaz Kavcic from Slovia who is just a few points shy of breaking into the top-100, Saketh Myneni who has shown a tremendous return to form after a long injury layoff, Spaniard Menendez Maceiras who is seeded second for the tournament, Ramkumar Ramanathan who finished second to Bhambri amongst others.

Myneni, who lost in the semifinals last week was pleased with his performance and will go into the tournament with an open mind. “It’s good to be back and I need to keep working hard and play more tournaments to go back to the ranking where I was,” said the 30-year-old who has dipped from 153 to 907 in rankings. 

“I haven’t come here to win or make money. I have come here to just make some points which will give me an entry into the Australian Open in January,” said top-seed Kavcic, who was once ranked 68 but two surgeries couple of years ago cut his journey short and he had plummeted to 450. However, with grit and determination, he has jumped back to 102 in a span of 18 months.

Meanwhile there was a cheer for the Indian camp as two players N Vijay Sundar Prashant and Sidharth Rawat claimed two out of four qualifying spots and made it to the main round winning their respective matches in the final round of the qualifiers.