NEW DELHI: India's tennis ace Sumit Nagal overcame the challenge of Italy's Andrea Pelegrino 6-3, 6-4 to enter the second and final qualifying round of the $408,800 ATP tennis tournament in Cagliari, Italy.
The No. 139-ranked Nagal, took one hour and twenty-eight minutes to get past his Italian rival, ranked No. 283 on the ATP, and set up a final-round clash on Monday against Maxime Janvier of France, who defeated Maxime Cressy of the US in straight sets.
The Cagliari tournament --- also called ATP Cagliari --- has a qualification phase where lower-ranked players have to compete to participate in the main tournament. A total of 40 players compete in the tournament of which 24 get direct entries into the main tournament, while the others take the qualification route.
Exactly a month ago, the 23-year-old Nagal who hails from Jaitpur in Haryana, had registered the biggest win of his ATP career when he had stunned world No. 22 and second seed Cristian Garin of Chile 6-4, 6-3 to make it to the quarter-finals of the Argentina Open ATP 250 tournament in Buenos Aires.
Nagal's dream run in the tournament had ended when he had gone down fighting to Spain's world No. 46 Albert Ramos-Vinolas 6-4, 2-6, 5-7 in a two-and-a-half-hour slugfest.
The Indian, who had made it to the US Open second round in 2020, had started as a qualifier in Buenos Aires before making it to the main draw.