Chennai (Tamil Nadu): India's rising tennis star Sumit Nagal defeated Italy's Luca Nardi in the Chennai Open 2024 to clinch the men's singles title on Sunday at the SDAT Tennis Stadium. Nagal, currently ranked 121, defeated top seed Nardi 6-1, 6-4 to claim the fifth ATP Challenger Tour title of his career and the first of this season. The Indian star has previously won Challenger Tour titles in Tampere and Rome last year, in Buenos Aires in 2019, and clinched the Bengaluru Open title in 2017.
Nagal was efficient and moved briskly to secure a crucial break in the second game of the first set. He went on to deflect two break points in the fifth game and eventually managed to get the second break of the first set. He went on to go one up by securing the first set in 38 minutes. Nagal, riding high on confidence, went on to break the Italian's serve in the third game of the second set. However, the 20-year-old bounced back to level the set by winning the sixth game.
Nagal and Nardi battled it out in extended rallies but were unable to break each other's serves. In the ninth game, Nagal levelled up his game to break the Italian's serve. In the 10th game, Nagal was down by 40-15 but went on to recover the deficit and win the game which lasted for one hour and 40 minutes. With this victory, Nagal will be in contention to make the top 100 ATP rankings for the first time in his career. In the all-Indian doubles final in Chennai on Saturday, Saketh Myneni and Ramkumar Ramanathan defeated Rithvik Bollipalli and Niki Poonacha 3-6, 6-3, 10-5 following a super-tiebreaker to clinch the title.
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