Central / West Asian Challengers - May,June 2019

[sameerph]

Too late for French open qualifiers. It is next week and the cut-off date was 2 weeks back. Wimbledon qualies cut-off is in 2 weeks time.

But, let us take one match at a time.

[arjun2761]

Good to see consistency from Sumit who has been playing well over the last several weeks.

He will need to win the title to get close to the cutoff for the Wimbledon qualies. Perhaps, making the US Open qualies is a more realistic goal for him.

[PKBasu]

I suppose these good performances will prepare the way for him to make the FO qualifiers next year. His best chance is surely in the French Open, as clay is clearly his best surface. But he does fine on hard courts too.

[PKBasu]

Sumit breaks at love in the third game, and will serve at 2-1 in the first set against Ortega-Olmeda. He is relentlessly attacking his opponent's backhand. That caused a couple of unforced errors in the second game (which went to Deuce), but Sumit mounted the pressure in the next game.

[PKBasu]

Sumit leads 4-2 now. He had his opponent down 0-30 in the previous game, but the guy dug deep to hold after a couple of deuces. Then Sumit held comfortably at 15.

[PKBasu]

Sumit holds after two deuces to make it 5-3. It is getting more competitive now. Sumit's explosive ground strokes usually do the trick, and his mobility is impressive. His second serve is a weakness though.

[PKBasu]

Serving for the set, Sumit went down 0-30, fought back nicely with groundstrokes to make it 30-30 (having not made a first serve until that point). Then he finally got a first serve in, but a brilliant service return gave his opponent break point, and a loose backhand from Sumit ended the game. 5-5 now.

[PKBasu]

Sumit breaks Ortega-Olmedo at 30, with a beautiful backhand passing shot from near the net after a long rally.
Then he goes down 0-30 on his service game, fights back to 30-all with good serves and groundies, goes down 30-40 after a loose backhand, then a couple of good first serve winners take him to set point, and he converts. 7-5, first set in the bag.

[PKBasu]

I haven’t been able to watch the second set, but Sumit broke Ortega-Olmedo in the 7th game at 30, then easily held at love (topped with an ace) to go 5-3 up in the second set.
Missed one match point in the 9th game, so it’s 5-4 now. Sumit serving for the match.

[suresh]

No hiccups. Sumit wins.

[QF] (15) Sumit Nagal (IND, 303) d (12) Roberto Ortega-Olmedo (ESP, 300) 7-5 6-4

Next up is the Brazilian who took out the sixth seed in the previous round.

[SF] (15) Sumit Nagal (IND, 303) vs Joao Menezes (BRA, 355)

[PKBasu]

Sumit serves it out easily to make the SF after a relatively easy 75 64 win in 1 hour and 35 minutes.

Another easy win in the SF?

[PKBasu]

Sumit won the first 7-5, but lost the second 4-6. He broke in the first game of the final set, but the match is suspended because of rain, with Sumit up 1-0 in the final set.

[PKBasu]

Sumit was broken back immediately upon the resumption, and he’s down (on serve) 3-4 in the final set. Another rain delay now.

[sameerph]

Match postponed to tomorrow at that score. On serve but Sumit needs to be on the top of his game right at the start tomorrow.

At $54K+H Samarkand Challenger 2019, Samarkand

[SF] (15) Sumit Nagal (IND,303) vs Joao Magalhaes Hueb De Menezes (BRA,355) 75 46 3-4 (match will be resumed)

[PKBasu]

Sumit's opponent ran away with the next 2 games to take the match, sadly. The rain breaks were disastrous for Sumit.