Miami Masters 2018: Yuki Bhambri moves past Mirza Basic, to face 8th seed Jack Sock next
| India's Yuki Bhambri rides his fine momentum into the Miami Open defeating World No.75 Mirza Basic 7-5 6-3 in an hour and thirty-two minutes to make a consecutive second round at the Masters 1000 after the BNP Paribas Open last week. The 25-year-old, Junior Australian Open champ who is making his third appearance on the ATP Masters tour, displayed some gut wrenching tennis despite an injury niggle in the second set to edge past the Bosnian. It was a debut for Mirza Basic on the Masters 1000 stage while for the Indian it was more like a familiar territory given his supreme run in California last week. The first set was a tight one in which Bhambri had to struggle a bit on serve and unforced errors but the second set was a cakewalk for the India No. 1 who cruised into the Round 2 with finesse. Winning 54% of the total points as against 46% of the Bosnian, Bhambri eased his way ahead. It has not been a very convincing break point conversion rate for the Delhi star in last night's match where he had 13 chances to break Mirza's serve but could convert only 5 of them. Nevertheless just better than the 29% of the opponent wherein he broke Bhambri's serve only twice despite having 7 opportunities to do so. The Bosnian double-faulted four times while Bhambri did only twice and proved his mettle raining down two aces in the duration of the entire match. The 71% of the second serve points won just shows that the Indian has all the weapons needed to bulldoze on the illustrious stage. The 68% first serves as compared to Basic's 57% helped Bhambri clinch win over the Bosnian. |
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