Ace Indian tennis player Sumit Nagal comfortably defeated American wildcard Stefan Dostanic in straight sets during his debut match at the Indian Wells Masters.
In the first round of the qualifying event on March 4, the Indian number one secured a straight sets victory of 6-2, 6-2 over Dostanic.
As the eighth seed, Nagal claimed victory in 68 minutes without allowing his opponent to earn a single break point throughout the match.
Nagal earns 10 valuable ranking points
Advancing to the final qualifying round, Nagal secured 10 ranking points and earned USD 14,400 in prize money.
Nagal to face Seong-chan Hong in final round
Nagal is set to face South Korea’s Seong-chan Hong in the second qualifying round on March 5. Hong secured victory over Kwon Soon-woo 6-3, 6-3 in the first qualifying round. Hong has been in excellent form, reaching two ATP Challenger level finals this year, with one of them being in Bengaluru recently.
Nagal has been in outstanding form recently and achieved a significant milestone by becoming the first Indian since Ramesh Krishnan in 1989 to defeat a seeded player at a Grand Slam.
He achieved a historic milestone by becoming the first Indian men's singles player in ten years to progress to the second round of the Australian Open.
He also claimed the Chennai Challengers title, propelling him into the top 100 rankings. Despite this success, he faced setbacks in Pune and Dubai.
Recently, Nagal became only the 10th Indian and the first in 5 years to enter the top 100 of the ATP men's singles rankings. He accomplished this milestone by winning the Chennai Open title, defeating top seed Luca Nardi of Italy 6-1, 6-4 in an hour and 41 minutes at the SDAT Tennis Stadium in Chennai to secure the ATP Challenger title.
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