Sumit Nagal, coming off his impressive first-round win at the Australian Open, lost to Chinese tennis prodigy Juncheng Shang on Thursday, ending his run at the first major of the season.
The 26-year-old Nagal, who beat 31st seed Alexander Bublik on Tuesday, began in the same dominating fashion but 18-year-old wild-card entrant Shang got better as the game progressed to win 2-6, 6-3, 7-5, 6-4.
After Nagal served out the opening set, the Chinese came out playing aggressively in the second, cutting down on his errors, serving well and improving his court coverage.
It was clear that Nagal had run out of steam in the fourth set. In contrast, Shang began to serve well from the third set and was at ease in pocketing his service games despite being troubled by high backhand balls in the match.
Nevertheless, Nagal exits Melbourne Park with good memories, having made the main draw through the qualifiers and taking home nearly Rs 98 lakh — an amount that should take care of most of his 2024 Tour budget.
Shang plays Carlos Alcaraz in the next round.
Bopanna-Ebden win
In the doubles at the Australian Open, India’s Rohan Bopanna and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden came down from a 0-5 deficit in the first-round opening set to beat locals James Duckworth and Marc Polmans 7-6(7-5), 4-6, 7-6 (10-2) in the super tie-breaker.
Elsewhere, the Indian pair of Vijay Sundar Prashanth and Anirudh Chandrasekar lost 3-6, 4-6 to the Hungarian duo Marton Fucsovics and Fabian Marozsan.
