Wasteful Yuki squanders QF berth
RUN ENDS Frenchman Herbert fights back after firstset loss to tame Indian
It boils down to making the most of the chances that come your way, and the one who grabs his chances emerges the winner.
Pierre-Hugues Herbert capitalised on his chances while India’s Yuki Bhambri didn’t. The Frenchman fought back from the loss of the first set to emerge a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 winner in their second round clash and sealed a place in the quarterfinals of Tata Open Maharashtra at the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex here on Wednesday.
Bhambri was left to rue his chances. The best-ranked Indian at 118 on the ATP chart did get plenty of chances against a player who served big but failed to back it up with consistently good groundstrokes.
Bhambri played well in patches but made errors at crucial points and lost the chance of beating a player ranked 81 in the world.
Bhambri, who was trying to reach the quarterfinals on the ATP tour for the second time, broke serve in the first game as Herbert struggled to find direction. While his rival settled down slowly, Bhambri played steadily to win the set 6-4.
PUNE:
However, the 25-year-old from Delhi started the second set badly as he made a couple of unforced errors, was broken in the second game and could not recover from the setback as Herbert maintained the pressure to draw level by winning the set 6-3. Herbert gained confidence from his big serve and produced some good shots at critical moments.
The decider was a slugfest and that’s where Bhambri lost the plot. The crucial games were the second and fourth in which the Indian put Herbert’s serve under a lot of pressure. After he had easily held serve in the first game, Bhambri had three break points (led 0-40) but could not close out the game. Herbert unleashed a couple of big serves to force deuce and scraped through.
Bhambri held serve easily in the next game and came up with some good returns to hold a 0-40 advantage on the Frenchman’s serve. But the Indian was thwarted again. Herbert did a Houdini act again, fighting back to force deuce with a couple of unplayable serves. While Bhambri saved a game point, his French rival managed to hold and make it 2-2.
The twin failures to break his opponent’s serve proved too much to digest and a disheartened Bhambri dropped serve in the very next game.
Herbert, who did not look like someone who will look a gift horse in the mouth, took advantage of that break to eventually win the decider 6-4, sealing a berth in the last eight stage.
A buoyant Angelique Kerber beat a battling Eugenie Bouchard to lead Germany to a 3-0 win over Canada at the mixed-teams Hopman Cup on Wednesday. Former world No 1 Kerber notched her second straight-sets wins in Perth to start the new year, while Bouchard —once ranked fifth but now 83rd -— was testy after yet another comprehensive defeat.
PERTH: