staged a brilliant comeback to beat an adrenaline-powered 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 and regain the $50,000+H KPIT ATP Challenger crown on Saturday. It was a game of contrasting styles with the Chennai lad\u2019s energetic game built around a big serve tackling the Delhi youngster\u2019s composed, technically refined game.<\/p>\n
It was Bhambri\u2019s sixth Challenger triumph and second in Pune following his success in 2015. The win stretches his record over Ramkumar to 2-1.<\/p>\n
He had a word of wisdom for his younger opponent who tried to get the crowd behind him with fist pumps after points.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have seen enough of that. Hopefully he will grow up a little bit and respect (the opponent). Of course, he thrives on that, but I think sometimes he goes overboard. I was just trying to play my own game, trying to do what I had to do, covering my side of the court,\u201d Bhambri, who collected 80 ATP points and $7200 from the win, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a very close contest. One break in either set changed it. It was very small margin today and it could have been anybody\u2019s game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ramkumar, who earned $4,240 and 48 points, had lost to Bhambri in his home town in the Chennai Open first round at the start of the year. But he has come a long way from there with the win over then world no. 8 Dominic Thiem in the grasscourt Tour event in Turkey marking him out as the future of Indian men\u2019s tennis.<\/p>\n
Saturday provided an opportunity for him to not just straighten the record against Bhambri, but also showcase his new-found credentials in front of a well-attended Centre Court final at the MSLTA Complex in Mhalunge-Balewadi.<\/p>\n
It was Bhambri, world ranked 137, who took the early lead with a break in the second game but Ramkumar hit back quickly to level it in the fourth game.<\/p>\n
Ramkumar, gunning his first ever Challenger title, turned on the heat with his thundering serves accompanied by rhythmic, elongated grunts.<\/p>\n
The shift in momentum reached its climax in the 10th game when Bhambri, serving to stay in the set, committed a volley error to face a double breakpoint; and surrendered it on the second with a mistimed forehand.<\/p>\n
However, the adrenaline rush was too much to handle for Ramkumar (150) himself. He squandered the momentum with five doublefaults in the third game of the second set and the match turned from thereon.<\/p>\n
That foot in the door was enough for Bhambri, who himself had scalped then world No. 16 Gael Monfils in the ATP 500 event in Washington this year.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old forced three more breakpoints in the seventh game. Although his 23-year-old rival held serve, Bhambri levelled the tie with a forehand crosscourt winner in the ninth.<\/p>\n
The decider was a relatively quiet, yet tense affair, but there was no doubt who was in control.<\/p>\n
Bhambri needed a medical time-out while leading 5-4 to treat his right calf muscle. When play resumed, Ramkumar gifted him a match-point with a doublefault and the Indian No. 1 converted with a perfect backhand service return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
staged a brilliant comeback to beat an adrenaline-powered 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 and regain the $50,000+H KPIT ATP Challenger crown on Saturday. It was a game of contrasting styles with the Chennai lad\u2019s energetic game built around a big serve tackling the Delhi youngster\u2019s composed, technically refined game. It was Bhambri\u2019s sixth Challenger triumph and second in Pune following his success in 2015. The win stretches his record over Ramkumar to 2-1. He had a word of wisdom for his younger opponent who tried to get the crowd behind him with fist pumps after points. \u201cI have seen enough of that. Hopefully he will grow up a little bit and respect (the opponent). Of course, he thrives on that, but I think sometimes he goes overboard. I was just trying to play my own game, trying to do what I had to do, covering my side of the court,\u201d Bhambri, who collected 80 ATP points and $7200 from the win, said. \u201cIt was a very close contest. One break in either set changed it. It was very small margin today and it could have been anybody\u2019s game.\u201d Ramkumar, who earned $4,240 and 48 points, had lost to Bhambri in his home….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2017-news","category-latest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kpittennis.com\/challengers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kpittennis.com\/challengers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kpittennis.com\/challengers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kpittennis.com\/challengers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kpittennis.com\/challengers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2535"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kpittennis.com\/challengers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2537,"href":"https:\/\/kpittennis.com\/challengers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535\/revisions\/2537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kpittennis.com\/challengers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kpittennis.com\/challengers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kpittennis.com\/challengers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kpittennis.com\/challengers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}