Yuki Bhambri joins Indian tennis elite, breaches top 100 ATP rankings

Bhambri in action at India's Davis Cup matchup against the Czech Republic earlier this year

It has been over a year since an Indian featured in the top 100 of the ATP singles ranking. With the release of the latest rankings this Monday, we once again have a player amongst the top 100. With a string of good performances, Yuki Bhambri has quickly catapulted into this elite category.

Bhambri is now ranked 99, the highest ever ranking he has managed. It was his Davis Cup teammate Somdev Devvarman who last held a spot in the top 100 of the ATP singles rankings in May 2014. With Devvarman still finding it difficult to regain the form that saw him rise in 2011, the Delhi lad has taken over the reigns.

Bhambri was a world no.1 during his junior days. With his 2008 Australian Open win in the boys’ category, he became one of six Indians to win a grand slam at the junior level. While some of his peers from those years have now managed to establish themselves well on the circuit, Bhambri found it difficult to withstand the competitive pressures of the professional circuit.

His early career has been plagued by nagging injuries that have prevented him from playing full schedules. His foray into the top 200 was complete in late 2012, but the injuries prevented his rise and pulled him further down the rankings.

Performance this year

In 2015, he has managed a full schedule with participation in all four grand slam events. He began the year with a first round entry into the Australian Open where he qualified for the first time. In his first round match, he managed to put up a decent performance against the finalist and sixth seed Andy Murray.

Though he failed to achieve a similar feat at the other majors, he has had a successful year. He has one singles title each from the ITF futures and ATP Challenger tours apart from three other runner-up finishes in challengers, including one on clay.He also won one doubles title at the Challenger level. Interestingly, two of those title were won in Uzbekistan, one of the favourite stomping grounds of Indian players, and also the place where he notched the final wins that have taken him to this historic ranking.

His season took a lift after the US Open. He reached the finals and won the title at a challenger event in Shanghai, which resulted in his then career high ranking of 125. Despite this, his Davis Cup outing was disappointing as he lost both his singles matches.

He followed that, however, with another final appearance at the Kaohsiung 125k Challenger in Taiwan, a tournament where he had beaten Czech ace Jiri Vesely on the way to earning his second ever top-50 win.

With his latest semifinal finish at the Tashkent 125k event, he has finally reached the top 100.

Future, near and distant

It is at the Australian Open that Bhambri won the Grand Slam as a junior. It is also the first and only Slam in which he has played main draw matches. He reached the third round of the doubles in 2013 with New Zealand’s Michael Venus after earning the Asia-Pacific wildcard apart from his singles appearance earlier this year.

With his rise in the rankings, it could also be the first Grand Slam into which he gains direct entry next year. He could also win his first matches on those very courts.

He has withdrawn from the challenger event at Bengaluru this week, where he was given the top billing. the next two tournaments on his schedule this year are the challengers at Pune and Hua Hin.

With a void created in singles after the decline on Devvarman, however short his stint at the top was, Bhambri will have to carry the baton from now on. Following him in the rankings is Saketh Myneni, at a career high ranking of 166 after his second career challenger title at Vietnam last week.

Devvarman features third followed by Ramkumar Ramanathan and Sanam Singh, both of whom are in the 200-300 bracket. With each of them achieving their best rankings in recent months, fans will hope for the players to take tennis in India to a new high and raise the bar for their peers and successors.