Who Is Sumit Nagal? First Indian In 35 Years To Beat A Seeded Player In A Grand Slam After Win Over Alexander Bublik At Australian Open 2024

Indian player Sumit Nagal entered the second round of the Australian Open for the first time in his career by defeating Kazakhstan's Alexander Bublik, ranked 27th in the world, in straight sets. The 26-year-old Nagal reached the main draw through the qualifiers. He defeated the 31st-seeded Bublik in a match that lasted two hours and 38 minutes with scores of 6-4, 6-2, 7-6.

Nagal has reached the second round of the Australian Open for the first time in his career. In 2021, he lost in the first round to Lithuania's Ricardas Berankis with scores of 2-6, 5-7, 3-6. Ranked 139th in the world, Nagal will play in the second round of a Grand Slam for the second time in his career. He lost in the second round of the 2020 US Open to Dominic Thiem, who later became the champion. With Nagal's victory, for the first time in 35 years, an Indian player has defeated a seeded player in the singles of a Grand Slam.

The last time was in 1989 when Ramesh Krishnan defeated Matts Wilander, who was the world number one player and the reigning champion of the Australian Open at that time. Nagal had a brilliant start, breaking Bublik's serve in the first game, but couldn't hold his own serve. He then broke Bublik's serve again to win the first set in 42 minutes. In the second set, Nagal displayed better performance, breaking Bublik's serve twice and holding his own to win in 43 minutes.

Absolutely __________ __@nagalsumit has achieved the extraordinary _ _#SonySportsNetwork #AustralianOpen #SlamOfTheGreats #AO2024 #SumitNagal #AusOpen pic.twitter.com/sBVleFQuUN — Sony Sports Network (@SonySportsNetwk) January 16, 2024

In the third set, both players held their serves until the seventh game. Nagal then broke serve to take a 4-3 lead and secured a 5-3 advantage. The set went into a tiebreaker, which Nagal won 7-5.

Who Is Sumit Nagal?

Nagal, born on August 16, 1997, was introduced to tennis at the age of 10 when he became part of Mahesh Bhupathi's Mission 2018 program. This initiative aimed to nurture an Indian Grand Slam singles champion by 2018.

In 2015, Nagal achieved success by winning the Wimbledon boys' doubles title alongside his Vietnamese partner Ly Hoang Nam. They emerged victorious in the final against the American-Australian pair of Reilly Opelka and Akira Santillan.

Nagal's first breakthrough came in 2019 when he almost beat 20-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer. He had won the first set in the first-ever Grand Slam match and that too vs Federer but the Swiss came bak strongly to win it 4-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 eventually.

Some time back, Nagal had revealed that he just had Rs 80,000 in his back account as most of his earnings go into his sports. He spends Rs 1 to Rs 1.2 crore annually on playing tennis, Nagal had said, after many sponsors had come forward to help him take care of the finances.