Sumit Nagal stuns world-number 27 and 31st seed Alexander Bublik 6-4, 6-2, 7-6 in straight sets at the Australian Open. In the process, he becomes the first Indian singles player to defeat a seeded player in the first round of the Australian Open since Ramesh Krishnan in 1989.
Indian tennis player Sumit Nagal has caused a big upset at the Australian Open 2024. He has made it to the second round of the men’s singles event by defeating world number 27 Alexander Bublik 6-4, 6-2, 7-6 in straight sets.
In the process, Nagal becomes the first Indian men’s player since 2013 to reach the second round of the singles. Somdev Devbarman last made it to the second round eleven years ago. More historically, this is the first time since 1989 that an Indian player has defeated a seeded player in a singles match at the Australian Open. Ramesh Krishnan was the last one to achieve this feat 34 years ago. Back then, he defeated Mats Wilander of Sweden in the second round. Wilander was then the top player in the world in tennis rankings.
This is the second time that Nagal has won the main round of a Grand Slam for the second time. Earlier at the 2020 US Open, he won a match in the main draw. Additionally, he has defeated a player ranked in the top 100 in tennis rankings for the seventh time. This is also Sumit’s second-biggest win in terms of the opponent’s ranking.
The story of the match
Nagal made a great start to the match and dominated proceedings right from the get-go. He broke Bublik’s serve three times and took the opening set 6-4. He then took advantage of a few mistakes that Bublik made in the second set to clinch it 6-2. The third set was tightly contested between the two players and went into a tie-break but Nagal held his own to emerge victorious and book his place in the second round of this year’s Australian Open.
