The fall and rise of Nagal

Indian tennis player Sumit Nagal in full cry against Morocco’s Yassine Dlimi in the men’s singles of the Davis Cup World Group-II tie on September 17, 2023 in Lucknow. Pic/Getty Images

There is a massive confusion out there in the tennis world these days over a surname. Well, everyone knows of the famous surname Nadal, but Nagal is the one who has made people sit up and take notice.

Rafael Nadal is known to all. But Sumit Nagal, an Indian, creating a flutter in 2024 is indeed the talking point.

Nagal has been pretty much like the proverbial Phoenix. To say that 2024 has been the breakthrough year for Nagal, the young man from Jhajjar, Haryana, would be stating the obvious.

Haryana and tennis? You gotta be kidding, said a few folks when Nagal had picked up a tennis racquet and started whacking the green, fuzzy ball on tennis courts well over 15 years back. Any talk of an athlete from Haryana will immediately lead one to think the boy or girl, man or woman, who has taken to sports like boxing, wrestling or hockey.

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Nagal, the maverick

Yes, Nagal is a maverick, in all ways. He comes from a family which did not have a hefty bank balance to back him. After all, tennis is an expensive sport and young Sumit was not going to find sponsors early in life. The beauty about his success story lies in fighting adversities and poverty, almost coming to a stage of being broke during the COVID-19 pandemic. To make things worse, he landed up with health issues necessitating a surgery as well. The focus is now on how Nagal has bounced back, just like a fresh, juicy, new tennis ball.

Rewind to over a decade back, Nagal had shown potential and promise. India was not the best place to train. Lack of quality tennis has been a handicap, plus no good trainers to work with him. At a time when India has positioned itself as a nation which can win medals on the big stage called the Olympics and Asian Games, tennis has lagged, big time. Yes, Leander Paes, the most patriotic athlete this writer has seen, tore the form book to shreds and showed that the underdog tag would suit him even when he went to the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. That Paes won a historic bronze is etched in history.

Virat Kohli

There can be no comparison with Paes, but in terms of an Indian doing well again in singles, Nagal has caught the eye. One has to rewind to the years gone by when another superb doubles specialist, Mahesh Bhupathi, spotted the latent talent in Nagal. Bhupathi did help Nagal, but the major funding for Nagal came from the Virat Kohli Foundation, almost seven years ago.

Had it not been for that funding, Nagal could not have set up base in Germany. The guy has a large heart, brave, and likes to play bold tennis. Nagal may not be a Paes in terms of foot speed and electric hands at the net to execute volleys. Nagal's strength is baseline play and grinding out rallies, where he has patience. If he lacks something in the rallies, it is the inability to come in and close out a point. Experts say he needs a winner in his arsenal, something which Jaidip Mukerjea referred to.

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When COVID had the world on its knees, Nagal was hit hard. He faced near-starvation, his bank balance had touched the danger limit. Tournaments in Europe had gone bust during the pandemic and Nagal struggled to make both ends meet, forget travel in Europe. If he had talked of finding it hard to get meals on time it was no exaggeration. Those dark days, this writer had kept in touch with Nagal.

A Haryanvi by nature, Nagal never lost heart, but wondered where the next few Euro or US dollar bills would come from! A sinking bank balance, no insurance to protect him, Nagal struggled. People can recall him winning a set off Roger Federer at the US Open in 2019. A few years later, they will recall Nagal winning a set off Holger Rune in Monte Carlo on Thursday. But not many would know Nagal was frustrated last September/October when he had no sponsor. When Gatorade signed him up, bang in the middle of the Asian Games in Hangzhou last year, Nagal was overjoyed. "I am not asking for riches, I am asking for a coach, physio, trainers to back me," he told this writer then.

Once the sponsorship came in, Nagal got the right personnel on board. A physio, trainer, coach and mental health expert are all at his disposal today. When he competed in a clutch of Challengers at the start of the year in Chennai, Bangalore and Pune, Nagal had shown he was tough and ready to fight. He had Somdev Devvarman, another baseline baron, to help him as part-time coach.

Today, Nagal has Sascha Nensel as full-time coach. The Indian's exploits have raged in 2024 from the Australia Open qualifying and then main draw in Melbourne to the United States of America, ATP Tour events. This is the clay swing, before the French Open. And this is Nagal's surface, like Nadal. Okay, this Indian dude is not going to win 14 French Open titles, but at least he comes like a whiff of fresh air in a stale state that Indian tennis is in. The only exception is Rohan Bopanna, Level 44, as he calls himself, playing solid doubles tennis with Matt Ebden.

As per current calculations, Nagal could be ranked around 80 on Monday when the new ATP rankings are released. "I am taking some time off to train," Nagal told Sunday mid-day on Friday.

Sumit likely to make cut for Paris

He will prepare hard for the French Open. What is also more or less certain is Nagal will make the cut for the Paris Olympics singles draw. Asked about what it felt like to break the 100-barrier in ranking in February, Nagal said: "It was the most emotional day for me. As a kid, everyone wants to be a Top 100 player. Everyone dreams of having that double-digit ranking." For the record, Nagal is raking in a few green bucks as well as prize money today. From poverty to affording the basics in life as a tennis player, penance has paid for him. Still any confusion over Nadal and Nagal?

2019
The year in which Sumit Nagal took a set off Roger Federer at the US Open. The Swiss legend won 4-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-4

S Kannan is a consulting editor at Revsportz