Exclusive: "The end goal is to put myself in a position to carry India's flag forward in Grand Slams & Masters" - Yuki Bhambri on becoming India No. 1

The majority of the tennis world's eyes have been focused on the likes of Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, Mirra Andreeva, and Aryna Sabalenka, during the ongoing Miami Open. However, a big section of Indian tennis fans were glued to a pivotal first-round clash between the nation's top two ranked doubles players - Rohan Bopanna (with partner Ivan Dodig) and Yuki Bhambri (with partner Nuno Borges): pivotal because the result had implications for the honor of being India's No. 1 doubles player.

In the end, Bhambri/ Borges overcame Bopanna/ Dodig 6-4, 3-6, 10-7 to move into the second round. The win will see Bhambri become India's No. 1 in doubles for the first time in his career. It also ended a five-plus year reign for Bopanna, who was the defending champion in Miami, as the country's leading doubles player.

For Bhambri, the milestone is a stepping stone to his eventual goal, which is to be the best version of himself. Bhambri talked to Sportskeeda exclusively from Miami after the win and said:

"It's been a good trajectory and I've had a good start to the year. That's really just my focus on to continue doing well and to climb up the rankings.

"I want to be trying to do the best that I can be and go as high as I can in my career and if that takes me to also becoming the No. 1(in India), then that's great. But I think the end goal, the key goal really, is to do as well as I can and to put myself in a position where I can carry India's flag forward in the Grand Slams and the Masters Series events."

Bhambri has been doing a pretty good job of that in recent months already. He won his first ATP 500 title in Dubai last month and has compiled a staggering 12-2 record on super tiebreaks this season with six different partners, after his regular partner, Albano Olivetti, had to take some time off due to injury.

Clutch play was evident at Hard Rock Stadium on Saturday once again, as the Indo-Portuguese duo battled back from 3-7 down to win seven points in a row and claim the victory.

"With how the scoring is, you really have to take it one point at a time and the match is always so close. So even though we were down 7-3, we knew that if you could get one or two points on their serve, you'd be back in the game because you still had a few serves from our end. So I think we were just really focused on every point and we played some good points to get back in the match and win it," he added.

"We'll know more in a few weeks’ time" - Yuki Bhambri on finding a regular partner for the season

Yuki Bhambri and Alexei Popyrin at the recent Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships

Up next for Yuki Bhambri is a clash against seven-time Grand Slam doubles champion Jamie Murray and Adam Pavlasek on Monday in Miami. As per the aforementioned source, he said:

"No match is easy. Obviously, Jamie is a veteran in doubles and I've played him a bunch of times, and been on the receiving end a few times. Adam as well is another good player and had a very good singles career as well. So hopefully we can do good. Definitely a tough matchup like one would expect in a Masters event. So hopefully we can combine well again with Nuno and carry on from there."

Currently sitting at No. 29 in the live rankings, Bhambri's success will not go unnoticed more amongst his peers, especially given that he has to find a regular partner for the rest of the season. That is something he hopes he will have fixed by the time the clay season comes around.

"It's been a bit crazy playing with different partners every week. I am looking and I am trying to find, to build a partnership from the clay season onwards. It's obviously not easy because most players are obviously already set. We'll know more in a few weeks’ time," Bhambri signed off.