8 wins, 13 days, 1 title, 1 semi-final. One hell of a run.
Sumit Nagal, India’s No. 1 tennis player, after playing scintillating tennis over the past 2 weeks, lost in the semi-final of the Dafanews Bengaluru Open 2024 to Italy’s Stefano Napolitano 6-7(2) 4-6. The match was a seesaw affair for both the players, with the players exchanging 9 breaks of serve overall, in front of a boisterous and a large crowd.
The match started off with Nagal breaking Napolitano in the fourth game of the match, to take a 4-1 lead in the match. Nagal played an exciting and aggressive brand of tennis, forcing Napolitano on the backfoot early. Nagal’s aggression,forced errors of the Napolitano shots, and the pressure of the match and the crowd meant Napolitano was also making far more unforced errors than he would have liked.
Nagal looked pumped and Napolitano looked shaky. But as any fan of tennis, nay sports would attest, it only takes a few minutes for fortunes to swing. After saving a couple of breakpoints with big serves in the sixth game of the match, Napolitano broke Nagal’s serve in the very next game of the match, with Nagal making several unforced errors on a trot. Nagal appeared to have a break in concentration, as strings of unforced errors continued, and Nagal was broken for the second time in the first set, and Napolitano had an opportunity to serve out the first set at 5-4. But Nagal had different ideas, as he broke Napolitano’s serve once again to level the match at 5-5. Both players held their respective serves to make the score 6-6 and to force the first set into a tiebraker. The tiebreaker started off in a disappointing fashion for Nagal as he gave away a mini break in the very first point of the tiebreaker, and was never to recover thereafter, as he lost the tiebreaker 7-2. Nagal’s forehands, especially his inside out forehands, which are usually as reliable as they are powerful, let him down when he needed them the most, as he continued committing an uncharacteristically high number of unforced errors.
Nagal took a long toilet break between the sets, and after looking like he was hobbling in between points. While he did break Napolitano in the third game of the second set, to go up 2-1, he never looked like his fit self. He called for a medical time out immediately after breaking Napolitano. While he did show shades of himself throughout the second set, Nagal was only a shadow of his usual self, as he was broken back and the set was restored to parity at 3-3. Despite not being at his best, Nagal fought till the very last point, but in the end, luck favoured Napolitano. While Nagal served to stay in the match at 4-5, for two successive points, the ball dropped short after hitting the net cord, with Nagal having no chance of retrieving them. Nagal gave a wry smile the second time it happened, as failed to hold his serve. But this run of Nagal’s must not be forgotten.
In the doubles final, however, India had better luck, as the duo of Ramkumar/Myneni defeated the French duo of Janvier/Kouzmine 6-4 6-4, to win their second successive title in two weeks.