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The runner-up finish at last week’s Chennai Challenger hauled Yuki Bhambri up by 11 places to 101st in the new ATP world rankings released on Monday, February 19, 2018. The 25-year-old gained 48 ranking points and a prize money of $4240 for his spirited show at the tournament.
The former junior Australian Open champion had a torrid time in 2016, having been sidelined for six months due to an elbow injury. It triggered a massive slide in the rankings and he dropped outside 500.
Bhambri is now on the comeback trail after that long break from the sport and is now just 13 places shy of his career best ranking of 88th that he achieved in 2015.
Last year, he started the season ranked 474th and finished at 116th. One of his standout performances came at the Citi Open in Washington DC where he made it to the semi-finals of an ATP 500 tournament for the first time. Yuki beat three higher ranked players there, one of which was the World No. 22 Gael Monfils.
He started the 2018 season with a pre-quarter-final finish at the Tata Open Maharashtra and then won three rounds in qualifying at the Australian Open before losing to Marcos Baghdatis in the first round.
At last week’s Chennai Challenger, the India No. 1 was stretched to three sets by Yasutaka Uchiyama in the quarter-finals. In the final, Yuki battled hard but failed to convert a match point and went down 5-7, 6-3, 5-7 to the top seed Jordan Thompson.
Meanwhile, Ramkumar Ramanathan continues to be the India No. 2 and moved up a place to 140th. 20-year-old Sumit Nagal is placed at 216th and Prajnesh Gunneswaran is 242nd. Sidharth Rawat, who qualified and won a round at the Chennai Challenger, jumped 32 places to 499th.
Bopanna maintains his top-20 place
In doubles, Rohan Bopanna maintains his 20th spot. He and Edouard Roger-Vasselin crashed out of the Rotterdam Open in the first round last week.
Divij Sharan is 42nd, Leander Paes is 49th and Purav Raja is 57th. Vishnu Vardhan, who won the Chennai Challenger title with N Sriram Balaji, moved up three spots to a career high 103rd. The win also propelled a ranking rise of 11 places for Balaji, who is now at a career-best 115th.
In WTA, Ankita Raina slid a couple of spots to 255th while Karman Thandi dropped three places to 281st. Sania Mirza, who is recuperating from a knee injury, is 14th in doubles.
