Local boy Yuki crashes out of the singles event of ATP Delhi challengers

IT WAS A DISAPPOINTING DAY for Indian singles players at the ATP Delhi challengers today. First up, the shocking defeat of World no. 99 Yuki Bhambri came as a surprise and later in the day his compatriots Vijay Sundar Prashanth and Sriram Balaji too were dumped in their first round matches. 

Local boy and crowd favourite Bhambri started proceedings against Joris De Loore but unfortunately went down to the Belgian in straight sets 4-6, 6-7(4). The no.1 seed couldn’t hurt his opponent and ended up losing the match in an hour and 40 minutes. 

Next up, wild card entrant Vijay Prashanth too was ousted at the hands of Jimmy Wang 2-6, 2-6 in a little over an hour. Another wild card in Sriram Balaji suffered the same fate by going down in two sets 6-7(4), 3-6 against seventh seed Yan Bai. 

However, Indians Prajnesh Gunneswaran and Vishnu Vardhan managed to make it to the next round after defeating their opponents Jeevan N and Adil Kalyanpur respectively. While wild card Gunneswaran defeated Jeevan N 6-4, 6-4, Vardhan made light work of qualifier Kalyanpur 6-1, 6-1. 

In the next round, Gunneswaran will play Yan Bai and Vardhan will lock horns against Zhe Li.