Bhubaneswar: Sumit Nagal, an odd man in the pro circuit, made his Grand Slam main draw debut Monday night. And he did that with a bang. His debut turned out to be a special one as he was pitted against none other than one of the all-time greats Roger Federer.
After spending the last four years toiling hard on the ATP Challenger Tour, he referred the prime-time showdown at the Flushing Meadows as a reward for his hard work.
Nagal’s journey to his first Grand Slam was largely facilitated by fellow Indian and former US Open doubles champion Mahesh Bhupathi. Bhupathi personally handpicked Nagal in 2007 for his ‘Apollo Mission 2018’ program, which sought to produce an Indian Grand Slam singles champion by 2018. But Nagal, only 10 years old at the time, needed to show his trademark chutzpah at the tryout here just to land one of the coveted spots.
“I was hitting with the other kids and there was a moment where I went to Mahesh and said, ‘Mr. Bhupathi, could you please look at my game?’ I knew who he was, so I grabbed his hand and asked him to look at my game,” Nagal said. “That’s the one line that changed my life. If I didn’t tell him this, I would not be sitting here right now.”
Nagal won the Wimbledon boys’ doubles title in 2015 with his Vietnamese partner Nam Hoang Ly, becoming only the sixth Indian player to win a junior Grand Slam.
The 22-year-old however, went through quite a few injury issues, including a torn labrum couple of years back that he considered undergoing shoulder surgery for. The rising Indian turned a corner in April, though.
He started that month at No.350 in the ATP rankings, but has nearly leapfrogged to 190 before arriving in New York. After reaching five Challenger semifinals in two months, Nagal then qualified for his first ATP Tour main draw last month in Hamburg.
He was 0-3 in his previous trips through Grand Slam qualifying, but weathered three quality opponents in last week’s qualifying draw for his latest breakthrough moment.
But regardless of what happened against Federer, Nagal intends to use the match as a stepping stone to the larger world. With no Indian player currently inside the top 80, Nagal wants to put tennis back in the front pages in the country.
“My goal in tennis is to do really well. Not just being No.80 or 90 in the world, so people aren’t saying that India is only good at cricket,” he told ATPTour.com. “People don’t say it’s an amazing tennis country anymore and I want to be the one that changes that.”