So far so good for Yuki

However,the difference in their skill set was apparent right from the first game when Mohit was 0-30 down on his serve and got broken soon after. That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the match which Yuki won 6-2 6-1 with Mohit holding serve only twice despite some good groundstrokes and a strong serve.

Despite the injury and no match practice for a couple of months,Yuki was playing good tennis,serving aces,sometimes even two in a game and hitting forehand winners at will. After Yuki held serve for 2-0 in the first,Mohit held the next game with a down the line serve and a cross court winner to finish the game. However,Yuki won the next two games in succession before he got broken,still maintaining a 4-2 lead.

Though Mohit self confessedly ‘choked’ at a few moments in the match,his serve was very strong for someone for someone playing who has only recently started playing ITF tournaments. He had a good game and technique but his impatience to finish the points and inconsistency in execution got the better of him and he faced deuce points on his serve almost in every other service game.

Though at some points he tried to volley,taking advantage of Yuki’s inability to reach for all the balls because of his injury,he failed there as well. When pushed,Yuki did dash for a few balls at the net,he was successful in returning them even as Mohit continued to miss some regulation shots because of his impatient temperament.

No resistance

The second set saw even less resistance from the Chennai boy who has been training in the Rainer Schuettler academy in Germany for the past eight months on a scholarship from the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association as Yuki zoomed to a 5-1 lead. While serving to stay in the match,Mohit netted a forehand on the first match point for Yuki and then true to his hot temperament throughout the match,threw the ball outside the premises of the stadium.

Though Yuki has won the first two matches on his comeback quite easily,the going is likely to get tough when the top seed faces eighth seed Karanuday Singh in the quarters on Thursday. Singh has improved his game to quite an extent in the past year and also beat Yuki in a Futures event in USA last year in a three-setter.

“I had participated in this event simply because I was busy with medical tests and forgot to withdraw my entry and then I thought let me just try it out and here I am in the quarters; was pretty happy with my movement on court today,hopefully its getting better,” Yuki said before moving on to some stretching exercises.

Other results:

Vignesh Peranamallur beat (2) Rohan Gajjar 6-3 7-5; (5) Vitali Reshetnikov beat Akash Wagh 7-5 6-4; (7) Vijyant Malik beat Vignesh Veerabadran 6-3 6-2; (4) Vijay Sundar Prashanth beat Ashwin Vijayragavan 6-1 6-4; (8) Karanuday Singh beat Abhijeet Tiwari 6-4 6-3; (3) Ranjeet Virali Murugesan beat Lukas Renard (SWE) 6-2 6-3; (6) Patrik Rosenholm (SWE) beat Kunal Anand 6-2 6-1