Yuki battles past Tal in ITF tournament quarters

Fourth-seeded Yuki Bhambri battled past Israeli qualifier Tal Eros 6-2, 2-6, 6-3 to enter the quarterfinals of the $15,000 Central Bank International Tennis Federation (ITF) tournament at the DLTA complex here Wednesday.

Yuki, who won last week's ITF event, looked poised to win in straight sets but could not stop the tall Israeli from taking the match into the decider.

The Delhi youngster, who walked away with an easy win against Nihal Kapoor in the first round, was greeted with booming serves and devastating forehand winners from the other side of the net on a hot and humid day.

However, the strongly built Israeli committed far too many errors to weaken his challenge and was often found struggling with his backhand. He double-faulted on the break point of the sixth game of the match to fall behind 2-4 and then threw away the first set by double faulting twice in a row in the ninth game.

One would have expected Yuki wrap up the second set with ease but instead the junior Australian Open champion lapsed into an uncharacteristic streak of errors. He was broken by Tal in the fifth and the seventh game to make it set-all.

Luck favoured Yuki in the decider and he jumped to a 2-0 lead after Tal served another pair of double faults in the second game. After that, all Yuki needed to do was to keep the ball in play, and in the ninth game served out the set and the match.

Yuki next plays fifth seed Divij Sharan who fought off the challenge from Mithun Murli 6-3, 6-4.

In the other pre-quarterfinal matches, Kento Takeuchi accounted for Vivek Shokeen 6-3, 6-4 for the second time in as many weeks and next faces Ranjeeth Virali-Murugesan, who overcame a second set fightback from Ronak Manuja 6-1, 7-6(8).

Second seed Vishnu Vardhan, too, advanced to the last eight with a 7-5, 6-3 defeat of Ashutosh Singh. He meets eighth-seeded Purav Raja, who brushed aside wildcard Vikram Reddy 6-3, 6-2.

Eighteen-year-old Karunuday Singh gave a tough fight to third seed Hyun-Woo Nam of South Korea before losing 1-6, 6-7(2) while sixth seed Rohan Gajjar had it easy against Fariz Mohammed, winning 6-3, 6-3.

Last updated on Jul 8^th, 2009 at 18:50 pm IST--IANS