India’s Yuki Bhambri made it to the Australian Open main draw for the third time after defeating Canada’s Peter Polanksy 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 in the final qualifying round in Melbourne on Sunday.
However, Ramkumar Ramanathan had a break chance in the fifth game of the decider but could not convert and eventually lost his third round match 4-6 6-4 4-6 to Canadian Vasek Pospisil in the final qualifying round. At Grand Slams, this is Ramkumar’s best show.
Bhambri ranked 122nd in the world, struggled with his serve in the opening set and could barely hold on to one service game before Polanksy pocketed the set with ease.
However, the Indian bounced back in the second set as his first serve win percentage rose from 29 to 75 and he did not drop a single point on his second serve and went on to break the Canadian twice to force a decider.
The final set followed a similar pattern and Bhambri grabbed the only break point that came his way to book his berth in the main draw in an hour and 55 minutes.
In his last two appearances in the main draw, Bhambri had lost to Andy Murray in 2015 and was knocked off by Tomas Berdych in the first round in 2016.