Top Indian singles player Sumit Nagal suffered a setback as he went down to 18th seed Karen Khachanov in the men's singles first round, ending his maiden entry into the main draw of the clay court major on a losing note in the Franch Open here on Monday.
It was expected to be an uphill task for Nagal as he was facing a top-20 player and the match went on expected lines though the Indian did put up some fight in the third set, taking his 28-year-old opponent to the tiebreaker. Also, clay is Nagal's least favourite surface.
The 26-year-old Nagal eventually lost 6-2, 6-0, 7-6(5) in a 2 hour and 27-minute match played on Court 7 which was interrupted by rain for some time here on Monday.
Sumit Nagal's struggles in converting breakpoints:
Nagal served four double faults as compared to two by his opponent and could manage to put in only 55 percent of his second serve as compared to 68 percent by Khachanov, who is ranked 19th in the World in the latest rankings. The Indian player ranked 95 in the ATP World rankings, who has a 3-6 win/loss record this season, earned nine breakpoints but could convert only 1 while Khachanov capitalised on six of the 13 breakpoints he bagged.
Nagal held his serve early in the first set but was broken easily by Khachanov. The 28-year-old Moscow-born Khachanov won nine games in a row from midway through the first set to win the second 6-0 to take a commanding lead.
Karen Khachanov wins the tie-breaking set:
Nagal won three games in a row in the third set to break his opponent's serve in the 10th game and tied the score 5-5. Both players held their serve and the set went into a tiebreak. However, Nagal could not win the set and force a fourth set as Khachanov won the tiebreaker 7-5 to win the match in the match that nearly stretched to two and half hours.
While Nagal's debut in the clay-court grand slam ended in the opening round, the 26-year-old from Jhajjar, who cracked into the top-100 in February 2024, will be looking forward to his debut in Wimbledon a few weeks from now.
