Chennai Open: Nagal fights her way into the second round

It was as if Sumit Nagal had been missing for most of the opening set. India’s No. 1 quickly fell behind at 0-5 as Britain’s Felix Gill punched above his weight, hitting sharply from the baseline and coming up with beautiful volleys when required in their Chennai Open ATP Challenger match at the SDAT Tennis Stadium.

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

After trading breaks early in the decider, Nagal, who entered the tournament after two defeats in the Davis Cup match against the Netherlands, walked away as the 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, beating Nitin Kumar Sinha 7-5, 6-3.

The result (first round): Singles: Federico Agustin Gomez (Arg) with 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) with Florent Bax (Fra) 5-7, 6-4, 3-2 (ret.); 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 SD Prajwal Dev (Ind) 6-2 (ret.); Sasikumar Mukund (Ind) bt Nitin Kumar Sinha (Ind) 7-5, 6-3; Eric Vanshelboim (Ukr) vs Aditya Vishal Balsekar (Ind) 6-0, 6-0.