Sumit Nagal created history as he became the first ever Indian man to record a main-draw win at Monte Carlo Masters, beating Italy’s Matteo Arnaldi in the first round on Monday.
The unseeded 93rd-ranked Nagal, who is only the third Indian to feature in the main draw in Monte Carlo after Vijay Amritraj (1977) and Ramesh Krishnan (1982), came from a set down to beat World No. 38 Arnaldi 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 in two hours 37 minutes and recorded his third win over a Top-50 player.
Nagal is also the first ever Indian to win an ATP Masters 1000 match on clay since the series began in 1990. The Indian will next face seventh-seeded Dane and last year’s runner-up Holger Rune.
“Milestone are nice. I played a really good match. Unfortunately, I didn’t win the first set even though I felt I was playing good tennis. Hats off to Arnaldi for it. In the second and third set, I think I played at a really high level, did the things that I wanted to do and was able to finish the match with a good service game,” said Nagal after the win.
Arnaldi broke Nagal to go 4-2 up in the opening set but the Indian broke back immediately. However, serving to stay in the set at 5-6, Nagal went down 15-40. He saved one break point the 23-year-old Italian converted the second one with a crosscourt winner to bag the first set.
“I knew I was winning most of the points when the rallies were getting longer. So, my goal was to figure out the strategy from first set to second set. Once I was able to control the points, I felt it became a little bit easier for me to play.”
In the second set, Nagal dominated Arnaldi and broke him twice to race to a 4-1 lead. While the Italian got one break of serve back, the Indian restored the advantage immediately before serving out the set.
In the decider, Nagal broke Arnaldi in the third game but the Italian restored parity at 3-3. However, Nagal broke him again in the seventh game and this time, managed to keep his lead intact to close the set.
Earlier, Nagal defeated Italy’s Flavio Cobolli (World No. 63) 6-2, 6-3 and Argentina’s Facundo Diaz Acosta (World No. 53) 7-5, 2-6, 6-2 to qualify for the main draw.
This is Nagal’s second appearance in an ATP Masters 1000 event in what has been a major season in his career. He got into the main draw in Indian Wells as a lucky loser after Rafael Nadal pulled out.
The 26-year-old Nagal began the season by qualifying for the main draw of the Australian Open where he shocked 31st-seeded Kazakh Alexander Bublik in the opening round.
He then won the Chennai Open ATP Challenger to make his Top 100 debut in the ATP Rankings.
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