Indian tennis player Yuki Bhambri has made it to his first ever ATP Tour final, after partnering with South Africa’s Lloyd Harris to reach the Mallorca Open men’s doubles summit clash.

The duo came up with an upset 6-4, 7-6 (2) against top seeds Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Santiago Gonzalez on Friday.

The 30-year-old from New Delhi had made a permanent switch to doubles from singles last year after being plagued by injuries throughout his career. However, he has started to climb up the ranking ladder consistently in the doubles stream, currently being ranked 75 but is expected to go up after reaching the final.

Playing alongside the tall South African, the pair beat the all-Austrian pair of Alexander Erler and Lucas Miedler 6-3, 6-2 in the opening round, followed by a 6-4, 6-4 win over fourth seeds Marcel Granollers of Spain and Argentine Horacio Zeballos.

In the final they will take on either Robin Haase and Philipp Oswald, or the all-American pair of Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow. The second semi-final takes place on Friday, followed by the final on Saturday.

During his time as a singles player, Bhambri, the 2009 Junior Australian Open champion, had broken into the top 100 twice – after an injury layover in between. He had also reached the quarterfinal of the ATP 500 event in Washington DC in 2017, beating then world No 22 Gael Monfils en route.

Though Bhambri has played a few singles matches, he has mostly competed in doubles with compatriot Saketh Myneni.

The duo had won five Challenger events last year, and picked up titles at Nonthaburi (Thailand) and Girona (Spain) this year.

Bhambri is now a step away from being the first Indian – outside of Rohan Bopanna – to win an ATP doubles title since Ramkumar Ramanthan in 2022. Incidentally, Ramkumar won the Pune ATP with Bopanna as partner.