Wild card Yuki Bhambri continued to shock seeded players and his latest victim in the quarterfinal of the DSCL Open National tennis championships was local hope Vivek Shokeen.

Yuki tamed fourth seed Shokeen 7-5, 6-3 in an hour and 44 minutes to set up clash with second seed Ashutosh Singh.

Yuki defended well against the hard-hitting Shokeen and kept his opponent guessing with his own shot selection.
Shokeen took a 3-1 lead by breaking serve in the fourth game but the frail-framed Yuki responded by breaking back in the next game.

The eighth and the ninth game met the same fate with both players unable to hold serve.
Yuki reaped kept Shokeen pinned on the baseline and did not allow him to take the offensive. Adding to Shokeen’s woes were his unforced errors.

Yuki broke Shokeen for the third time in the 11th game and held serve to take the first set.

Poor volleys

Things did not go well for Shokeen in the second set as his volleys did not fetch him points and most of his shots landed out of court. His lobs too were well negated by Yuki, who broke his statemate in the third game and held next to get a 3-1 lead.

Both held their serves in the next four games before Yuki broke Shokeen in the ninth to seal the matter in his favour.

Madkekar loses
Top seed Aditya Madkekar, who has been struggling throughout the tournament due to sickness, also bowed out losing 4-6, 0-6 to eighth seed Navdeep Singh.

Before surrendering in the second set, Madkekar served strongly in the first set, firing six aces. Both players held serve till the ninth game to make it an engrossing encounter.
However, chances of an exciting finish dimmed with Madkekar finding the going tough with deteriorating health.
Second seed Ashutosh Singh moved to the last four stage as his opponent, Vijay Kannan retired when Singh was leading 5-3.

Sixth seed Aishwarya Srivastav emerged victorious in a marathon quarterfinal match of the girls’ under-18 competition beating top-seed Kyra Shroff 6-7 (6-8), 6-1, 7-5 in three hours and 25 minutes.