Clinches his third career Challenger title and first in India

Yuki Bhambri with the singles trophy ONGC’s Yuki Bhambri was crowned the Singles and Doubles champion at the P L Reddy Memorial Challenger Tennis Tournament in Chennai which concluded on Saturday, February 8, 2014. The victory at the Chennai Challenger was significant as Yuki seeded seven had defeated compatriot, India’s No 1 & top seed of the tournament Somdev Devvarman (ex-ONGCian) in straight sets 6-2, 6-4 in the semi-final. In the final, Yuki beat Alexander Kudryavtsev of Russia 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 in a thrilling three-setter. Yuki, then partnered Michael Venus of New Zealand (who was also his partner at the Australian Open) to comfortably beat the Indo – Slovakian pair of N Sriram Balaji and Blaz Rola 6-4, 7-6 (3) in straight sets. It was a befitting achievement for Yuki who had kick started this year in a very promising fashion with a Quarter Final finish in the singles event at the Chennai Open ATP Tour in the first week of January followed by another Quarter Final finish at the Australian Open Doubles. He then followed it up with clinical performance in the Davis Cup tie in Indore against Chinese Taipei where he won both his singles matches ensuring a clean sweep for India. The win will see Yuki breaking into the top 150 with a career high singles world ranking (more than 20 places jump from his current world ranking of 174) when the revised list is published later this week.