Chennai Open: Nagal fights his way into second round

It was as if Sumit Nagal had gone missing for the best part of the opening set. The India No.1 quickly fell behind 0-5 as Britain’s Felix Gill punched above his weight, hitting crisply from the baseline and coming up with fine volleys when he needed to in their Chennai Open ATP Challenger contest at the SDAT tennis stadium.

The eighth seed Nagal swiftly turned things around and stepped up his return game to race to a 5-0 lead in the second set before Gill could get himself on the board.

After exchanging breaks early in the decider, Nagal, coming into the tournament after two losses in the Davis Cup tie against the Netherlands, ran away a winner.

Sidharth Rawat joined his compatriot in the round-of-16, with an upset 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 win over fifth seed Rio Noguchi of Japan. Sasikumar Mukund was the other Indian winner on the day as he edged out Nitin Kumar Sinha 7-5, 6-3.

The results (first round): Singles: Federico Agustin Gomez (Arg) bt Manish Sureshkumar (Ind) 6-1, 6-2; Oliver Crawford (GBr) bt Digvijaypratap Singh (Ind) 7-6(6), 3-6, 7-5; Ilia Simakin (Rus) bt Manas Dhamne (Ind) 6-3, 6-2; Sidharth Rawat (Ind) bt Rio Noguchi (Jpn) 2-6, 6-3, 6-2; Federico Ferreira Silva (Por) bt Karan Singh (Ind) 6-4, 6-4; Denis Yevseyev (Kaz) bt Florent Bax (Fra) 5-7, 6-4, 3-2 (retd.); Sumit Nagal (Ind) bt Felix Gill (GBr) 1-6, 6-1, 6-3; Duje Adjukovic (Srb) 6-4, 6-4; Petr Bar Biryukov (Rus) bt Ishaque Eqbal (Ind) 6-3, 6-4; Lorenzo Carboni (Ita) bt S.D. Prajwal Dev (Ind) 6-2 (retd.); Sasikumar Mukund (Ind) bt Nitin Kumar Sinha (Ind) 7-5, 6-3; Eric Vanshelboim (Ukr) bt Aditya Vishal Balsekar (Ind) 6-0, 6-0.