NEW DELHI: India's top singles player Yuki Bhambri was today forced to concede his opening round match against higher-ranked Milos Raonic of Canada at the Queen's Club Championship in London because of a knee injury.
Yuki, ranked 84th in the world, was trailing 1-6 1-3 against world no.31 Raonic, when the Indian decided to forfeit the match after he started feeling pain in his knees and didn't want to aggravate it further.
Yuki had qualified for the ATP 500 Fever-Tree Championships here after beating America's Taylor Fritz 6-4 6-2 in the second and final qualifying round.
However, doubles specialist Rohan Bopanna and his French partner Edouard Roger-Vasselin entered the quarterfinals of the men's doubles event with straight sets 6-3 7-6(3) win over South Africa's Kevin Anderson and Julien Benneteau of France.
Bopanna and Roger-Vasselin will next face top seeds Oliver Marach of Austria and Croatia's Mate Pavic.
Meanwhile elsewhere, India's Purav Raja and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan have sailed it to the men's doubles quarterfinals of the Fuzion 100 Ilkley Challenger event in Ilkley, Great Britain with their respective partners.
While Purav and John-Patrick Smith of Australia, seeded third, defeated Peter Polansky of Canada and Australia's Matt Reid 6-1 6-4 in the opening round, Jeevan and Austin Krajicek of the US beat Polish-American combination of Hubert Hurkacz and Evan King 6-4 6-4.