Chennai: India’s top-ranked men’s singles player Sumit Nagal continued his impressive run as he made his second successive Chennai Open Challenger semifinal on Friday. The second seed beat Dominik Palan of the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-3 in the quarterfinals at the SDAT Tennis Stadium and will take on Dalibor Svrcina for a place in the final.
Meanwhile, local lad Mukund Sasikumar, who enjoyed a dream run in the competition beating two higher-ranked players, exited after losing to third seed Svrcina of the Czech Republic 7-6(6), 2-6, 4-6.
Nagal had lost to Palan the last time they played in the quarterfinals of the Pune Open Challenger in March last year, but that didn’t seem to have any psychological effect on the Indian.
After holding their respective service games early on, Palan took the role of the aggressor. He troubled Nagal with big returns and had a break point in the third game. However, Nagal held on to lead 2-1. He strengthened his position by breaking the world No. 330 in the following game, with the latter committing a flurry of unforced errors.
In the ninth game, the Czech kept testing Nagal on his serve and was a point away from breaking. But on big points, unforced errors kept letting Palan down, as Nagal won the first set.
The Indian drew first blood in the opening game of the second set. At 3-2, Palan had a chance to level the score when he had a break point. Palan rushed to the net but his volley was within Nagal’s reach. The world No. 121 cleverly lobbed it over the Czech to save the break point. It seemed to take the fight out of Palan and Nagal hit a backhand cross-court winner soon after to wrap things up.
Mukund got off to a slow start against Svrcina. In the opening set, both got broken early twice leading to a tie-breaker. The Indian wildcard raised his game to win the set, but Svrcina did enough to take the next two and show the local player the door.
Nardi through to last-four stage:
Top seed Luca Nardi of Italy progressed to the semifinals by getting the better of compatriot Stefano Napolitano 6-4, 3-6, 6-0.All-Indian men’s doubles
final:
The Indian pairings of Saketh Myneni-Ramkumar Ramanathan and Niki Poonacha-Rithvik Bollipalli made it to the men’s doubles final after defeating Japan’s Kaito Uesugi-Toshihide Matsui (6-3, 6-2) and Mark Wallner-Jakob Schnaitter of Germany (6-3, 4-6, 10-7) respectively.
Meanwhile, local lad Mukund Sasikumar, who enjoyed a dream run in the competition beating two higher-ranked players, exited after losing to third seed Svrcina of the Czech Republic 7-6(6), 2-6, 4-6.
Nagal had lost to Palan the last time they played in the quarterfinals of the Pune Open Challenger in March last year, but that didn’t seem to have any psychological effect on the Indian.
After holding their respective service games early on, Palan took the role of the aggressor. He troubled Nagal with big returns and had a break point in the third game. However, Nagal held on to lead 2-1. He strengthened his position by breaking the world No. 330 in the following game, with the latter committing a flurry of unforced errors.
In the ninth game, the Czech kept testing Nagal on his serve and was a point away from breaking. But on big points, unforced errors kept letting Palan down, as Nagal won the first set.
The Indian drew first blood in the opening game of the second set. At 3-2, Palan had a chance to level the score when he had a break point. Palan rushed to the net but his volley was within Nagal’s reach. The world No. 121 cleverly lobbed it over the Czech to save the break point. It seemed to take the fight out of Palan and Nagal hit a backhand cross-court winner soon after to wrap things up.
Mukund got off to a slow start against Svrcina. In the opening set, both got broken early twice leading to a tie-breaker. The Indian wildcard raised his game to win the set, but Svrcina did enough to take the next two and show the local player the door.
Nardi through to last-four stage:
Top seed Luca Nardi of Italy progressed to the semifinals by getting the better of compatriot Stefano Napolitano 6-4, 3-6, 6-0.All-Indian men’s doubles
final:
The Indian pairings of Saketh Myneni-Ramkumar Ramanathan and Niki Poonacha-Rithvik Bollipalli made it to the men’s doubles final after defeating Japan’s Kaito Uesugi-Toshihide Matsui (6-3, 6-2) and Mark Wallner-Jakob Schnaitter of Germany (6-3, 4-6, 10-7) respectively.