Tennis Round-up | Sumit Nagal, P Gunneswaran, Ankita Raina lose in respective matches
After all the hype of reaching his first ATP 500 main draw, Sumit Nagal had to bow down to French tennis veteran Richard Gasquet in straight sets in the Hamburg Open. Meanwhile, Prajnesh Gunneswaran and Ankita Raina also lost their respective clashes in the Atlanta Open and Baltic Open respectively.
21-year-old Nagal made a slow start against the French World No. 65, who had no problems, taking the first set quite comprehensively with two breaks of serve. However, the in-form Indian was expected to come back stronger in the second set and despite the 33-year-old having another early break in the second, Nagal saved it.
This time, he broke Gasquet twice to win four straight games making the Indian fans hope again with the match looking to go into a decider. But, Gasquet’s experience saw him breaking Nagal back to level things before he went on to win the second set and the match in a tiebreak. He succumbed to a 6-2, 6-7(2) defeat in the first round of the clay-court event in Germany.
Despite the loss, it should help the youngster gain massive experience after he defeated the likes of world No 127 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 6-3, 7-5, a day after defeating world No 171 Sebastian Ofner 7-5, 6-2 in the qualifiers to reach the main draw.Â
In the ATP Atlanta Open, Gunneswaran surprisingly fluffed a one-set advantage to lose to Soon-woo Kwon 6-7(4), 7-5, 6-0 in the first round, while the WTA circuit of Baltic Open saw India No 1 Ankita Raina getting outplayed by Patricia Maria Tig 6-2, 6-1 in the first round as well.
