 "Sumit Nagal in action against Holger Rune during the Montwe Carlo Masters on Wednesday. Reuters")
India’s men’s doubles pair of Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden went down to Mate Pavic of Croatia and Marcelo Arvalo of El Salvado in the round of 16 clash of the 2024 Monte Carlo Masters tournament on Wednesday. Bopanna and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden lost with a scoreline of 3-6, 6-7 (6-8) in the clash.
In the first set, Bopanna and Ebden trailed their opponents in quick time and never really found a way back. And although they fought hard in the second set, Pavic and Marcelo were just too strong for them.
Nagal match suspended owing to rain
Indian tennis ace Sumit Nagal was trailing in his second round men’s singles match against Holger Rune of Denmark, when rain led to a suspension of the contest.
The unseeded Nagal lost the first set 3-6 and was behind 1-2 against seventh seed Rune, when the heavens opened up.
Holger was dominating the match until the rain interruption. The 36-year-old Nagal entered the match having enjoyed an excellent run of form.
At the Roquebrune-Cap-Martin clay court, he first humbled the eight seeded Flavio Cobolli in the qualifier, and then third seeded Facundo Diaz Acosto to sail into the main draw of the prestigious tournament.
India’s flagbearer in singles tennis, then, stunned Italian Matteo Arnaldi in the first round with a 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 victory.
On Monday, Nagal became the first Indian to win a main draw match at the Monte Carlo Masters after he defeated World No.38 Arnaldi of Italy in the opening round.
Nagal also became the first from the country to win a main draw match at one of the three Masters 1000 events: the series that started in 1990 held on clay.
Having recently achieved a career-high ranking of No. 93 in the ATP rankings, Nagal has become only the third Indian to participate in the main draw at Monaco, joining the legendary Vijay Amritraj (in 1977) and Ramesh Krishnan (in 1982).
With PTI inputs