India tennis player Yuki Bhambri suffered a straight-sets defeat to Czech Republic’s Tomas Machac in the Australian Open qualifiers here on Thursday, meaning the year’s first grand slam will have no Indian participation in the singles main draw.
Bhambri lost his second round qualifying match 1-6, 3-6. Machac reached a career high ATP singles ranking of 131 in November 2021.
On Tuesday, Bhambri had impressed with his attacking net play in a straight sets win but Ramkumar Ramanathan’s 23rd attempt at cracking the singles main draw of a grand slam had ended in a first round defeat at the Australian Open qualifiers.
Bhambri, who returned to the grand slam stage after the 2018 US Open, beat 248th ranked Joao Domingues from Portugal 6-4, 6-2 in just 68 minutes. The 29-year-old Indian’s serve looked decent and he played smartly as he charged at the net to keep the points short.
On Wednesday, Prajnesh Gunneswaran lost rhythm and energy before staging a mini comeback but eventually bowed out with a second-round defeat against Germany’s Maximilian Marterer 2-6, 6-7 (8-10) in one hour and 26 minutes.
In women’s singles, Ankita was blown away by Lesia Tsurenko 6-1, 6-0.