Indian tennis player Sumit Nagal won his second ATP Challenger title this season after beating Switzerland’s Alexander Ritschard 6-1, 6-7(5), 6-3 in the final of the event in Heilbronn, Germany.
With the win, Nagal won 100 ranking points that saw him jump from 95 to a career high world No 77 – a spot that may likely see him earn a spot in the men’s singles draw for the Olympic Games in Paris, which will begin in July.
Nagal had broken into the ATP top 100 after he won the Chennai Challenger in February, and has only grown since then.
Over the past fortnight, he made his French Open main draw debut, but was handed a 2-6, 0-6, 6-7(5) defeat by 18th seeded Russian Karen Khachanov.
The early loss from the Grand Slam allowed him to make the trip to Heilbronn to compete in the Challenger.
He opened his campaign in Germany with a 6-2, 1-6, 6-3 win over Georgia’s Nikoloz Basilashvili – a former world No 16 who has now dropped to beyond the 500-rank mark.
In the second round, the 26-year-old from Jhajjar, Haryana, registered a 6-4, 6-1 win over Spain’s Javier Barranco Cosano, before bating Russian player Ivan Gakhov 6-1, 7-6(4) in the quarter-final.
In the semi-final, he beat fifth seeded Frenchman Luca Van Assche 6-2, 7-6(5) to make it to his second Challenger final this season.
The win on Sunday was his sixth Challenger title, and a fourth on clay.
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