India’s Sumit Nagal built on his strong performances on clay this season qualifying for his first-ever ATP 500 main draw in Hamburg after with a win over third seed Alejandra Davidovich Fokina.
Nagal, ranked 207 in the world, beat the world No 127 Spaniard 6-3, 7-5 a day after defeating world No 171 Sebastian Ofner 7-5, 6-2 in the qualifiers. He will face French veteran Richard Gasquet in the first round.
This performance comes on the back of a stupendous run in the ATP Challengers, where he made semi-finals in five of his last seven tournaments to reach a career high ATP ranking of 204 earlier this month.
Nagal has been training at the Nensel Tennis Academy in Peine, Germany, under head coach Sascha Nensel and his team. Sascha has coached former Top 10 players Nicolas Keifer and Julia Goerges in the past.
Indians putting together a winning run on clay across America and Europe is unusual. While the 21-year-old had been doing this quite regularly since 2016 – when he was 18 – it is only recently that he has been able to make deeper inroads in such tournaments.
However, Nensel, who along with his team at the Nensel Tennis Academy, is taking care of Sumit’s training, has charted bigger goals for the youngster. “Amazing is winning the tournament. We are working hard to get there soon,” he said.
Nagal was training in Spain until last year, at the Ferrer Tennis Academy, under David Ferrer’s brother, Javier Ferrer.
“We have known each other for a long time. Milos Galecic, who’s the director of fitness at the academy, used to be Somdev’s [Devvarman] fitness trainer. After leaving Spain, Sumit asked Milos for help, and we all ended up working together,” Nensel said of the partnership.
Asked about what aspects of the Indian’s game have been worked on in the past few months, he explained: “We are working on pretty much everything. In modern-day men’s tennis, you cannot survive with any weakness. His body is improving and getting step-by-step closer to where we want him to be. It’s only possible when the gym work is very close to the work on the court.”
The efforts have definitely had an impact as Nagal has catapulted to a career-high ranking of 204 from 351 in a matter of just a few months. Along the way, he has beaten the likes of Albert Ramos-Vinolas, Martin Klizan, Santiago Giraldo, Corentin Moutet.
The win over Klizan was particularly impressive, given the Slovakian is the world No 60 and had beaten Novak Djokovic and Dominic Thiem on clay only last year.
The next target, said the coach, was to break into the Top 200.
“Surely we want him to play where the level is high and where you can win the most points. Otherwise, you don’t improve, and cannot get the amount of points you need to make the next big step. First priority is to be healthy and keep improving his body and his tennis”, said Nensel.
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