CHENNAI: Last February, Sumit Nagal was a broken man. Multiple injuries had rid him of competitive tennis to such an extent he was outside the top-500. He was so out of sight that he was given a wild-card to enter the qualifiers. After winning two matches to make the main draw, he fought through the field to advance to the semis; a first at that level since reaching the last four at an event in Romania in September 2021.
A year later Nagal is the man of the moment in Indian tennis. In front of an okay crowd at the SDAT Tennis Stadium, the 26-year-old broke into the top-100 (he will be No. 98 on Monday) for the first time. An error from the racquet of Luca Nardi — there had been lots of those for the duration of the final — gave the Indian his fifth Challenger title and second on home soil after Bengaluru (2017). This one was perhaps one of Nagal's most dominating performances. Across Nagal's five matches, he lost 28 games.
As soon as the ball went long, he dropped his racquet before hugging his entourage (Somdev Devvarman was a part of the coaching team this week). "I don't think there were words, more tears than words," he said when asked what spoke after the victory. "Lots of emotions, we have all worked very hard to be here."
For some players, breaking into the top-100 is a pitstop to a much larger goal. But you can see why it's a big deal for the Indian (the 10th player and the first since Prajnesh Gunneswaran in 2019 to break through the glass ceiling).
Sometime between September 2021 and February 2023, he had even contemplated leaving the sport for good. "2022 Summer was probably the worst time," he said when asked to reflect upon his career between the two time periods. "I had just started playing after six-seven months off. I got injured again. That was one of my hardest (times), it was very dark. I asked myself 'why me? why me?'. In October that year, I made a switch. I need to stop playing the victim; if it's going to happen, it's going to happen. I need to change from 'why me' to 'why not me'?"
Since that change in the mental make-up, Nagal gradually rose up the rankings before winning two Challenger titles at Rome and Tampere in 2023. His 2024 is continuing on a similar theme: advancing to the second round of the Australian Open as a qualifier before picking up this title.
His next challenge is to stay in the top-100.
Road to title: bt Prajwal Dev 6-1, 6-2, bt Giovanni Fonio 7-5, 6-2, bt Dominik Palan 6-3, 6-3, bt Dalibor Svrcina 6-3, 6-4, bt Luca Nardi 6-1, 6-4.