Yuki Bhambri qualified for the main draw at the prestigious Fever-Tree Championships at Queen’s Club in London with an impressive straight-sets win over Taylor Fritz on Sunday.

Bhambri overcame the American 6-4, 6-2 in the grasscourt event.

Fritz, ranked 67 in the world, is one of the Next Gen ATP stars and is considered a bright prospect for the future. The win earns Bhambri, who recenly climbed to a career-best 84 on the ATP rankings, a shot at one of the most significant Wimbledon warm-up events.

Bhambri lost his serve twice but broke his rival five times. It was the second meeting between the two players with Fritz emerging winner last year at the Ilkley event.

Bhambri had to come from behind to beat British wild card James Ward 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 in the first round of qualifying.

The Indian will open his main draw campaign against the world number 35 Canadian, who ended runner-up to Roger Federer in Stuttgart. This will be the first meeting between Bhambri and Raonic.

Andy Murray will make his long awaited return from hip surgery at Queen’s Club, while his old rival Djokovic arrives at the Wimbledon warm-up hoping to end his wretched run.

Murray has not played a competitive match since he was knocked out of the Wimbledon quarter-finals last July as a hip injury brought a painful end to his season.

Djokovic, who plays a qualifier in the first round, is one of 14 of the world’s top 30 in the strongest draw the West London event has even seen.

Marin Cilic, Grigor Dimitrov and Stan Wawrinka are among the other stars in action at Queen’s.

Meanwhile, Prajnesh Gunneswaran won 6-4, 6-2 over Dennis Novikov at the ATP Challenger event in Ilkley
to progress to the final round of qualifying. Ramkumar Ramanathan is seeded sixth and opens his campaign against Austria’s Sebastian Ofner on Monday.

Priscilla Hon defeated Ankita Raina 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 in the first round of qualifying at the Nature Valley Classic WTA event in Birmingham

Elsewhere, Manish Sureshkumar finished runners-up in his first Futures final in Sri Lanka, losing 5-7 2-6 to 572nd ranked Russian Alexander Zhurbin in the final.

UPDATE:

India’s Prarthana Thombare won the doubles title at the ITF $100K Manchester Challenger partnering Thailand’s Luksika Kumkhum. The fourth-seeded Indo-Thai duo defeated top seeds Naomi Broady and Asia Muhammad in the final 7-6 (5), 6-3 on Sunday.