The first time Sumit Nagal played in the main draw of a Grand Slam, he took on Roger Federer at the 2019 US Open, and very memorably took a set off him then as a qualifier. It was his mainstream claim to fame for a long time: for all that period he was seen as the next big, young singles hope for Indian tennis.
The last time, before Tuesday, that Sumit Nagal played the main draw of a Grand Slam was at the Australian Open back in 2021. He had received a wild card then but lost in the first round... and then he didn't get a chance to play another Major in the next three years, a combination of qualifying losses and injury-induced absences.
Cut to 2024 and he's back in the main draw, this time via the hard grind of three qualifying matches.
The All India Tennis Association (AITA) refused to nominate him for a wild card nomination for a wildcard entry into the 2024 Australian Open after he opted out of the Davis Cup tie against Pakistan, because it was being played in grass and he wanted to focus more on rising his ranking higher for the Olympics, which didn't factor in training for grass for such a short time.
How did he deal with the disappointment? Qualify for the Grand Slam and knock out a seed in the first round. Up against Alexander Bublik, world no 27, Nagal came out all guns blazing.
Bublik may be high ranked but he's an unpredictably volatile player, and what Sumit had to do was play a clean game and draw out the Bublik errors. Against disciplined tennis Bublik has the potential to implode... and that's exactly what Nagal did.
He raced into a 4-1 lead in the first set and despite Bublik pulling it back to 4-3, the Indian went on to take set by a 6-4 margin, profiting of his higher-ranked opponent's error-strewn performance.
Nagal was handling the windy conditions with ease, but Bublik continued to double-fault and find the net multiple times, trailing 4-1 in the second set and breaking his racquet in frustration. The Indian then went on to take a 5-2 lead and Bublik saved three set points, before Nagal closed it out to win 6-2.
Bublik started well after the break, holding serve in two consecutive games for the first time in the match to lead 2-1. The Kazakh player had a chance to break Nagal while leading 3-2 but the Indian held him off to level things at 3-3. Nagal earned the decisive break in the next game, leading 4-3 and holding serve in the next to open a two-game lead. Bublik, however, wasn't making things easy and won the next game to claw it back to 4-5. With Nagal serving for the match, Bublik benefitted off a couple of errors to lead 30-15, before a superb backhand winner down the line made it 40-15 in his favour, and then broke him with some stellar stroke play, making it 5-5.
Nagal had to dig deep as Bublik won the next game, forced a tie-break by holding serve. Nagal started off well in the tie-break as Bublik served, sending a clever angled backhand winner, and then taking a 3-0 lead. Nagal produced a stunning return to make it 4-1 soon after but found the net with his forehand in the next point to make it 4-2. Bublik went long with a return to the backcourt to trail 2-5, before another error saw him gift three match points to Nagal at 6-3.
Naga went wide with an attempted forehand winner to make it 6-4 and went wide again after a long rally in the next point. The crowd was chanting Bublik's name, but the Kazakh player made it an anti-climax with a double fault to ensure Nagal won the game 6-4, 6-2, 7-6 (7-5).
Into the second round he goes, the first Indian man since Ramesh Krishnan (in 1989 against Mats Wilander at the AO) to beat a seeded player at a Grand Slam. He is also just the third Indian since 2000 to win a match at the Australian Open after Leander Paes and Somdev Devvarman.
That Nagal has the potential cannot be denied -- he was picked by Mahesh Bhupathi as a young talent -- but despite all that the promise, luck, and physical fitness, and at times, mindset have not always been on his side. From a career-high world No. 122 in 2020 he fell to world No 500 with a hip surgery in between. He's recovered the ranking thanks to his performances in ATP Challengers and is back in the Top 150, currently at 137.
This performance on the outside courts of the Rod Laver Arena showed the world just what Nagal is capable of. Now awaiting him in the second round on Thursday is China's Shang Jungchen, ranked below Nagal at 140.