A fluent Yuki Bhambri played with a lot of authority to reach the singles semifinals of the KPIT-MSLTA Challenger even as N Vijay Sundar Prashanth exited but not before making an impression, here today.
Top seed Yuki tamed Taipei's Ti Chen 6-4 7-6(4) and has now reached at least the semifinals each in his last five Challengers.
Prashanth put up a valiant fight against second seed Russian Evgeny Donskoy before losing a tight singles quarterfinal 6-7(8) 6-7 (5) after sweating it out for two hours at the Centre Court of Balewadi Sports Complex.
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Prashanth, who won three ITF Futures this season, proved that his victory over Somdev Devvarman was not a fluke.
Yuki, who is in red-hot form, was supremely confident in his approach as he came forward to the net a lot more to set up easy winners and the strategy paid off.
The 23-year-old Delhi boy hit some amazing winners from difficult positions and one such shot in the eighth game of the first set was even applauded by Chen.
After trading a break each early in the match, Yuki broke Chen in the ninth and served out the set in the next. He was comfortably placed to close the match after breaking the Taipei player in the seventh but dropped serve in the 10th.
He had three break points in the next game but Chen saved and that was his only disappointment in the match.
In the tie breaker, Yuki upped the ante and hit four winners in a row to race to a winning position.
However, Yuki was not happy with the way he played.
"I was nowhere close to my top game. It's surprising that I am here (semis) the way I have played this tournament. It was not the cleanest of the match," he said adding that he took chances by approaching the net more and will pursue the same tactics against Ward.
"I can play much better," he said.
Yuki is now the only Indian left in the singles event of the USD 50,000 event and will challenge fourth seed Briton James Ward for a place in the final.
