Australian Open: Badly begun isn’t any job finished for Sumit Nagal

Till then, Sumit Nagal had solely resorted to the few phrases he’d grumble in direction of his field. But when the rating learn 4-0 in favour of his opponent Ricardas Berankis, after dropping the primary set, the 23-year-old yelled in anguish. It would appear that the frustration of being pushed from one facet of the court docket to the opposite with no reward was getting the higher of him. But the scream was really a warfare cry. Mentally, he discovered what he wanted to do to remain on this first spherical Australian Open tie.
“I just took a step back from the baseline (during rallies) and I started to make more balls in, made him play more, made him go for more winners,” he says.
Just as rapidly as he went down 4-0, he recovered to make it 4-4. Nagal’s large forehand had began to kick in, his tireless legs began to pump in additional effort to chase down photographs, and his physique serves at Berankis began to pay dividends. Nagal was prepared for an additional slugfest.
It was all evenly balanced by the point he was serving at 5-6 within the second, seeking to take the set into the tiebreaker. That’s when Berankis, the World No 73 with extra expertise in tough-match conditions, performed a sequence of unreturnable passing photographs.
Sumit Nagal didn’t journey with a lot match observe when he got here to Australia. (AP)
A backhand down-the-line winner took the rating to 15-40. And on his first set level probability, although Nagal had been answerable for the rally and pushed the Lithuanian deep on the left, Berankis let-fly one other two-hander passing winner to seal the set.
“I don’t know if it was unlucky for me or lucky for him because he hit those shots on the line,” Nagal says. “It could have happened at any time, but it just happened at that moment.”
Down by two units, and with Berankis beginning to construct momentum, Nagal would finally bow out 6-2, 7-5, 6-3, in a match that lasted two hours and 10 minutes.
It was the primary time Nagal was taking part in in the principle draw of the Australian Open, courtesy of a wild card. Naturally, the nerves had been anticipated from the World No 144 from Jhajjar. So was the attention for a combat and the massive forehand that had impressed even Roger Federer when the pair competed on the US Open in 2019.
Unfortunately, the one Indian singles participant on the Major took fairly some time to get into some rhythm.
“You can’t show up at a Grand Slam match and be somewhere else for the first 45 minutes,” Somdev Devvarman, who was commentating, mentioned in a post-match evaluation present. “It’s not just about the opportunities that were missed, but the fashion in which he missed it. He was nervous, and that is understandable. But Berankis showed up and Sumit was only there in patches.”

The favoured forehand shot wasn’t as penetrative because it’s recognized to be previously. But he did present just a few elegant flashes of it. The most pleasant was when Nagal sprinted diagonally from the left nook of the baseline to succeed in a drop-shot, after which performed a curving forehand winner.
But he quickly ran out of issues to throw on the Lithuanian.
“Serving a high percentage on his body was a good option, but he’s a good returner. He figured out that I was going for his body and adjusted to it,” Nagal provides. “I should have won more of the close games, but then again I haven’t played much for a while.”
Nagal didn’t journey with a lot match observe when he got here to Australia. A shoulder damage in October meant he needed to spend most of his time pre-season recovering from it. He needed to depend on the five-hour coaching exemption gamers received through the quarantine spell once they first arrived in Melbourne.
But in opposition to a high 100 participant, it wasn’t sufficient. Nagal asserts he’s taken just a few notes in his diary about issues he must work on. He’s ticked ‘Australian Open appearance’ off his bucket checklist, however making an affect at Melbourne Park will probably be excessive on the agenda subsequent 12 months.