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India’s top-ranked tennis player Sumit Nagal recently created history after defeating World No. 38 Matteo Arnaldi from Italy in the first round of the main draw at the Monte-Carlo Masters tournament.
In a hard-fought encounter, Nagal prevailed with a scoreline of 5-7, 6-2, 6-4. He will next take on World No. 7 Holger Rune from Denmark, in the second round of the competition. Interestingly, Rune ended up as last year’s runner-up.
The 26-year-old Indian started off the first round in the main draw on the backfoot, trailing by 2-4 in the first set. Serving to stay in the set at 5-6, Sumit failed as he went down by 15-40 and as a result, Arnadli claimed a 7-5 win in the initial set.
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Moving on to the second set, Sumit Nagal put up a strong fight to make an exceptional comeback. He dominated and broke the opponent twice to take a 4-1 lead. Though the Italian got one break of serve to make it 2-4, Nagal got back to his best to win the second set 6-2, pushing the match to a decider.
In the third and deciding set, Nagal and Arnaldi gave their best to level at 3-3. However, the former broke the Italian in the seventh game to take a lead and win the set 6-4 and the match.
Sumit Nagal is the first Indian to win an ATP Masters 1000 on a clay court
Notably, Sumit Nagal became the first ever Indian to win an ATP Masters 1000 match on a clay court since the competition was introduced in 1990.
Importantly, the 93rd ranked Indian player became the third Indian player to secure a spot in the main draw at the Monte-Carlo Masters after Vijay Amritraj (1977) and Ramesh Krishnan (1982).
Nagal qualified for the main draw of the clay court campaign after securing a win over 55th-ranked Facundo Diaz Acosta from Argentina in the second and final round of the qualifying draw with a scoreline of 7-5, 2-6, and 6-2.
Nagal has so far bagged five ATP Challenger Tour titles in his career. He started off with a Bengaluru Open title win in 2017. Later, he secured a win in Buenos Aires in 2019. Later he registered wins in Tampere and Rome in 2023. Chennai Open win in 2024 is his latest title victory.
