India tennis player Yuki Bhambri was the only Indian to reach the quarter-finals of the Chennai Open ATP Challenger tennis tournament, with an easy 6-2, 6-3 win over compatriot Sidharth Rawat on Wednesday.
Joining the second seed in the quarter-finals were top-seed Jordan Thompson of Australia and the No 3 and 4 seeds Duckhee Lee (Korea) and Mohammed Safwat (Egypt).
The two other Indian players in the fray - Arjun Khade and Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam lost in straight sets to Safwat and Lee.
Bhambri was in control and never dropped serve while breaking his rival’s serve twice in each set. Bhambri played fluently from the baseline, hitting strongly off both flanks and kept Rawat on his toes.
In the quarterfinals, he will meet Japan’s Yasutaka Uchiyama, who beat Cem Ilkel of Turkey 6-4, 7-5. The top-seed Thompson played a classical all-round game to oust qualifier Wishaya Trongcharoencharikul of Thailand in straight sets 6-3, 6-2. He will face Serbia’s Danilo Petrovic for a place in the semi-finals. The Serbian advanced when seventh-seeded Enrique Lopez Perez of Spain conceded after having lost the first set.
-Inputs from PTI
