MELBOURNE: Sumit Nagal put up a strong fight, but it was not enough to take him to the third round of the Australian Open as he lost 6-2, 3-6, 5-7, 4-6 to Chinese teenager Juncheng Shang. The 18-year-old will face World No. 2 seed Carlos Alcaraz in the third round.
Sumit got off to a brilliant start and pocketed the opening set, but Juncheng turned his game up a notch thereon. He reduced his unforced errors, was impeccable on the serve as he seized control of the contest. The former junior World No 1 grew into the game after pocketing the second set and Sumit had run out of answers. The Indian was not offered a single break point in the third set as Juncheng held each of his service games before breaking Sumit in the 11th game.
Juncheng made a lot more dashes to the net and that worked wonders for him. Sumit battled it out in the fourth set and found the lines with a couple of monstrous forehands, but still found no inroads into his opponent’s service games. Juncheng, yet again, did not allow a single break point and instead broke Sumit in the seventh game to wrap up the fourth set and seal the win.
Irrespective of the loss, it marks a fantastic week of tennis for Sumit. The highlight of which was his straight sets win over World No. 27 Alexander Bublik. He got past three rounds of qualifying without dropping a single set and became the first Indian male tennis player to beat a seeded opponent at a Grand Slam in 35 years.