Delhi Open: Bhupathi-Yuki storm into final, Ankita Raina loses in semis

Mahesh Bhupathi and Yuki Bhambri, playing for the first time together as a team, stormed into the men’s doubles final of Delhi Open tennis tournament with an easy victory over their opponents here on Friday.

Bhupathi and Yuki hardly broke a sweat in their 6-1 6-3 victory over the pair of Jimmy Wang of Chinese Taipei and Ze Zhang of China in the semifinals in the USD 50,000 hard court tournament at the DLTA complex.

Bhupathi and Yuki will face another Indian pair of Saketh Myneni and Sanam Singh in the summit clash.

Fourth seeds Myneni and Sanam defeated top seeded duo of Flavio Cipolla and Divij Sharan of India 6-3 6-3 in the other semifinals.

In the men’s singles also, Myneni, seeded fourth, entered the semifinals with an easy 6-4 6-1 win over Zhe Li of China in the quarterfinals.

Myneni will meet second seed Kimmer Coppejans of Belgium in the semifinals.

Coppejans beat India’s wild card entrant Prajnesh Gunneswaran 6-3 6-2 in another quarterfinals match.

In the women’s singles, India Ankita Raina lost to Sabina Sharipova of Uzbekistan 3-6 4-6 in the semifinals.

“It was a really high quality of tennis. The level of tennis was totally different from previous rounds that I played. Sabina played really well today, from what I had seen in Fed Cup she was more consistent and in good form,” Ankita later told PTI.

“We had really long points and due the courts being fast, it was really quick. I had to increase the speed from the last matches that I played and I was always missing it. This is what I felt while I was on court, I’m not sure if it looked different from outside to the audience,” she said.