Yuki Bhambri eyes return to top-100 rankings in 2018

When he won the first of his two junior grand slam titles, Australia’s Bernard Tomic defeated India’s Yuki Bhambri in the semifinals of the 2008 Australian Open. Yuki won his only Junior Slam title the next year beating Greek Alexandros-Ferdinandos Geoegoudas in Australian Open.

Tomic, who stepped into the senior circuit soon after, went on to achieve a highest ATP tour ranking of 17 in January 2016.

Bhambri achieved his highest-ever ranking of 88 in November 2015.

Their career graphs took a dive in similar fashion and today they are currently ranked out of the top 100 - - Tomic is ranked 141, Bhambri is 118.

While Tomic lost out due to mental issues and was in the news for the wrong reasons, Bhambri succumbed to a tennis elbow injury and was out of action from March to September, which saw ranking drop below 500.

But that’s where the career graphs moved in different directions from - - Bhambri has fought his way back and is on the verge of making it back into the top 100.

“I was very happy with the way the entire season went. I worked on small things throughout the season but playing the entire season without any injury was the main thing,” Yuki told Hindustan Times on Friday on the sidelines of the Tata Open Maharashtra ATP 250 Series event here.

In July 2017, Bhambri scalped his first top player - - Gael Monfils of France who was ranked 22 at that time - - as he reached the quarterfinals at Citi Open in Washington, his first entry into the last-eight stage of the ATP 500 event. Towards the end of the year, he won his second Pune Challenger title by beating compatriot Ramkumar Ramanathan in the final. This was his sixth Challenger title.

Now that he has climbed his way back up, Bhambri now wants to continue the progress and make it back to where he was in 2015.

“I hope to play the entire 2018 season, play as many matches as possible on ATP Tour, work on my game, improve on things like my service and net play and hopefully win some titles,” said Bhambri.

Just like in 2017, the 25-year-old from Delhi, who is now settled in Bradenton, Florida, started the year by reaching the second round of the ATP 250 event at home and is hoping to do well in the Australian Open.

He has set himself another target too - - get back to where he was in doubles too. He was ranked 134 in doubles in 2014 and is way down at 376.

“I want to play doubles more on ATP tour, whenever I get the chance, along with singles, I would enter my name in doubles too though singles will remain my priority,” said Bhambri.

He started putting his resolve into practice at the Tata Open where he reached the semifinals in partnership with Divij Sharan, with whom he reached the final of the Tashkent Challenger in October 2017.