Blitz Bureau
Nagoya, 29 September: Sumit Nagal won his second round to enter the pre quarter final at the ongoing Asian Games tennis tournament
Sumit defeated 2023 Asian Games bronze medallist Seongchan Hong of South Korea in the second round 6-4, 6-0, while Suresh registered a hard-fought 7-5, 7-6 (2) win over Indonesia’s Gunawan Trismuwantara.
Sumit and Hong’s match was stopped on 28 September due to weather conditions, while Sumit was 3-2 up in the first set. The Korean staged a comeback and won the first eight points on resumption as Sumit was trailing 3-4 in the opener.
However, the former World No.68 Indian went on to win nine straight games to seal the set, and later the match.
Sumit had lost to Hong in the ATP Masters 1000 Indian Wells qualifying round 6-2, 2-6, 6-7 (4). Coming into the Asian Games, Nagal had lost two singles matches in India’s 1-3 Davis Cup defeat to South Korea.
He went down to Hyeon Chung 6-2, 4-6, 5-7, while he also lost to Soonwoo Kwon in the singles event 1-6, 2-6. Nagal will next face Uzbekistan’s Sergey Fomin in the next round at the Asian Games.
Meanwhile, Suresh had a close-fought encounter against the Indonesian on his Asian Games debut. He took a closely fought first set 7-5 after breaking Gunawan. He had a strong 80% win percentage on the first serve, which was a strong 82% on the second serve in the first set, while Gunawan won 72% of points on first serve and 33% on second serve.
The Indian continued in the same vain, as he won an impressive 85% of points on his first serve in the second set and 86% on his second, while his opponent only won 70% of points on first serve and 47% on the second.
