Sumit Nagal thread

[Sanjay]

Max Houkes is ranked 300. A winnable match.
I hope to see him winning a Challenger and then on to the ATP tournaments. We have no one playing ATPs anymore.
In the 80s and earlier, we had our guys regularly playing in Grand slams and in some cases going deep.

[arjun2761]

Winning this challenger will get him into the 250s, so quite some way before he can play ATPs regularly. He may be able to get into a few qualifying draws of ATP events and try to get in that way. Most immediately, I hope he can get into the low 200s to make the GS qualies. Good luck to Sumit for his next match!

[jayakris]

[QF] (Q) Sumit Nagal (IND,347) d. (Alt) Max Houkes (NED,303), 75 60
so
[SF] (Q) Sumit Nagal (IND,347) vs (8) Joris De Loore (BEL,198)

His live ranking is now #305. Another win can take him inside top 275.

"Sumit or bust" for Indian, but thankfully it is not yet bust

[Sanjay]

What's going on here?
Sumit is slapping everyone around!

[jayakris]

^^^ Nothing .... He is back to a top-250 or top-200 level of tennis, at which he was before, for a long period.

[jayakris]

By the way, Sumit's opponent DeLoore is an interesting story too, at age 30. The dude was ranked in the top-200 some six years ago as a 24 year old (career high just inside top-175) but had fallen totally out of the rankings some 3.5 years ago, even before the pandemic. Came back in the last 18 months or so and has moved all the way back inside top-200 again! An impressive comeback.

[jayakris]

2-6 3-3 down... Sumit won a great 38 shot sparring rally with a forehand passing shot down the line at 30-40 to break. That was the first BP h got in the the match! ... He holds serve to 26 53... He got 3 or 4 iffy line calls, to drop serve (the ref did over-rule one out-call on a beautiful winner, but he lost the replayed point to go 15-30 and be in a hole)... 4-5... At 5-5 he got a break again at 30-40 with an inside out forehand near the net, 6-5. Can he hold this time? An 18-shot rally for 40-0 3BP... Wins it at love and he evens it up at 26 75 00... High-quality sparring match in the third but Sumit not losing many points on his serve.. 3-3.. DeLoore serves two DFs and has a mshit. Another 30-40 BP converted... 4-3 and serving... Saves two BPs (can't get a single call gp his way on the right line on screen, and the ump had to console him!), but he holds... 5-3... Serves a love game!! Got it!!

[SF] (Q) Sumit Nagal (IND,347) d. (8) Joris De Loore (BEL,198), 26 75 64

[Dinesh]

Wow! 6-4 in the decider for Sumit I woke up just to catch the last couple of games. #272 in the live rankings.

[jayakris]

Sumit or Bust, but right now Bust is some distance away. We have a top-300 player after 5 months, since last Nov 28 when RamK dropped out of top-300.

[vparam]

Gritty performance by Sumit. I believe Monday’s ranking will determine the French Open qualifying cutoff, so Sumit may have a chance to sneak in if he wins tomorrow.

[jayakris]

Sumit had 93 points, and JDJ had 89... Taking serves and DFs (11 & 5 by JDJ and 0 & 2 by SM), it was 88 to 78 when the ball was in play. It is great to get a win against a guy who served 11 aces, without even a single ace. Sumit played smart and solid claycourt tennis. It was great to see him waiting for the right chance to draw JDJ to his right corner on a retrieval shot, because he would invariably hit it flat into the net, knowing that a loopy retrieval would not work. Sumit had figured that out sometime into the match, and he might have got some 7 or 8 points from just that. The other key was hitting very few shots short. JDJ was adept at moving up if he got any chance, and hitting a winner that you can't touch (his hardcourt strength), but Sumit must have hit only 3 or 4 balls for JDJ to do that damage, after the first set. Just beautiful tennis by both guys. Our guy was better!

[sameerph]

Amazing win by Sumit. 6 straight wins against these European clay courters.

What a turnaround by Sumit in the matter of 4 weeks from losing in first round of qualies to a 500th ranked player to reaching the final here.

He has got his bearings firmly back on clay. Jay, you may have to revise your opinion that clay is not his best suface now.

[jayakris]

Gritty performance by Sumit. I believe Monday’s ranking will determine the French Open qualifying cutoff, so Sumit may have a chance to sneak in if he wins tomorrow.

Yeah, that would take him inside #255, with a chance to squeeze in with some withdrawals even if he may be out of the first list.

[jayakris]

He has got his bearings firmly back on clay. Jay, you may have to revise your opinion that clay is not his best suface now.

Very much so. He knows his tennis, and I know nothing ... Basically he has got his return game working well again. Staying 10 feet back even on second serves, running around to hit forehand returns deep enough. And then being patient.

[sameerph]

Gritty performance by Sumit. I believe Monday’s ranking will determine the French Open qualifying cutoff, so Sumit may have a chance to sneak in if he wins tomorrow.

Yeah, that would take him inside #255, with a chance to squeeze in with some withdrawals even if he may be out of the first list.

Very tough. Last year's cut off was 238 and nowadays after the prize money has increased a lot for slam qualies almost everyone turns around to play and cut off is around 240.