Sumit Nagal will follow players like Vijay Amritraj, Leander Paes and Sania Mirza, becoming the representative tennis player from the most populous country world in the international arena.
So who will Nagal face? top star Holger Rune in the second round of the Monte Carlo Masters?
Early years of life
Nagal was born in Jhajjar, Haryana, India in August 1997. His father, Suresh Nagal, worked as a teacher while his mother, Krishna Devi, was a housewife.
The first time Nagal picked up a tennis racket was At the age of 8, this 26-year-old tennis player showed great potential from an early age and just two years after starting to participate in tennis, he was invited to play at the academy run by Indian tennis legend Mahesh. Bhupathi runs.
Nagal lived in Bengaluru from 2008 to 2010 to train at the Bhupathi academy. However, after the academy closed, he moved to Toronto to continue pursuing his tennis dream .
In Canada Nagal, led by coach Bobby Mahal, saw his career take off while still a teenager in 2015.
Early Futures titles came to the Indian tennis player during this period, but it was in the Grand Slam arena that he first attracted great attention.
In 2015 with Vietnamese tennis player Ly Hoang Nam Nam Nagal won the junior men’s doubles championship at Wimbledon becoming the sixth Indian to win a junior Grand Slam title.
He followed that success with multiple titles in singles and singles. played more doubles at Futures level before making his India Davis Cup debut in 2016.
The resilient challenger
Nagal has been a regular on the Challenger Tour for the past decade, but it wasn’t until recently that he was able to consistently break through Although the ATP Tour has established itself as a formidable opponent on the ATP Challenger circuit.
After winning 9 Futures level titles Nagal defeated British tennis player Jay Clarke to win the title. won his first Challenger-level tournament in Bangalore in November 2017.
Nagal has won 5 Challenger titles and has been especially successful recently when he won 3 out of 5 titles has been coming since the beginning of 2023 including in Chennai this season plus he has reached two more finals.
US Open and Olympic milestones
An important step forward came at the 2019 US Open. Nagal passed the qualifying round to participate in the Grand Slam main round for the first time. He had to face legendary tennis player Roger Federer and also made an impression. when he only lost after four sets.
The following year, due to the impact of Covid-19, Nagal was given a special exemption to attend the 2020 US Open. He had his first Grand Slam victory after defeating host country player Bradley Klahn in the first round. fairy. The next round Nagal lost to Dominic Thiem, who then became the tournament champion.
The next two years Nagal suffered many injuries but was still unexpectedly awarded a spot to attend the Tokyo Olympics where he became the first Indian male tennis player since 1996 to win a singles match after defeating Denis Istomin.
The recent rise and historic milestone of Monte Carlo
Nagal qualified for the Australian Open for the second time in his career last January by defeating seed no 31 Alexander Bublik became the first Indian player in 35 years to defeat a seeded player at a Grand Slam tournament.
That achievement and the title in Chennai helped Nagal enter the ATP top 100 It was a great leap forward for the Indian tennis player because just a year ago due to injury, he fell to position 506 on the ATP rankings.
Motivation for Nagal to continue conquering Monte Carlo came from his qualifying to become the first Indian player in 42 years to reach the main draw.
Then by defeating Matteo Arnaldi 5-7 6-2 6- 4 in round one yesterday (April 8). Nagal became the first Indian player to win a Masters 1000 match on clay. Nagal will face a bigger challenge in the second round when he faces runner-up Holger Rune. Anyway, the Indian player has nothing to worry about.
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