WATCH: Sumit Nagal scripts history with victory against Matteo Arnaldi as he becomes first ever Indian singles player to win a Masters 1000 match on clay since 1990!

Sumit Nagal beats Matteo Arnaldi 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 in the round of 64 of the 2024 Monte Carlo Masters.

WATCH: Sumit Nagal scripts history with victory against Matteo Arnaldi as he becomes first ever Indian singles player to win a Masters 1000 match on clay since 1990!

Sumit Nagal (Source: IMAGO)

Sumit Nagal has created history in the Monte Carlo Masters. The 26-year-old registered a sensational victory in the 64th round of the tournament today. 

He came back from behind against Matteo Arnaldi after losing the first set and proved his mettle. With this, he has now become the first Indian player to win a Masters 1000 match since 1990.

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Nagal is also only the third Indian player to make it to the main draw of the Monte Carlo Masters. Before him, Vijay Amritraj and Ramesh Krishnan were the two other Indians to have played in the main draw of the Monte-Carlo Masters in 1977 and 1982, respectively. This is thus pretty big for Indian tennis. 

Sumit Nagal has been in pretty good form in 2024 so far, and his victory against Matteo Arnaldi was a sweet addition to his already great season.

His victory against Alexander Bublik in the first round of the Australian was another major highlight of his performance in 2024 so far. He also won the Chennai Challenger in India shortly after that by defeating Luca Nardi in the final. 

Talking about his performance against Matteo Arnaldi, he lost the first set but made a phenomenal comeback after that, giving the Italian no chance at all.

He thus ended up winning the match 5-7, 6-2, 6-4. The Indian did a Novak Djokovic-esque celebration by silencing the crowd that had earlier booed him after winning the match. Well, with that being said, it clearly showed what this victory meant to him.

Before this, he had defeated Flavio Cobolli and Facundo Diaz Acosta, respectively, in his two qualifying matches to make it to the main draw.

Sumit Nagal faces Holger Rune in the round of 32 of the 2024 Monte-Carlo Masters

Now that Sumit Nagal has defeated Matteo Arnaldi, he will be facing Holger Rune in the round of 32. The two players have faced each other only once so far, and the Danish emerged victorious in that match. For Rune, this will be his first match of the tournament. 

Holger Rune
Holger Rune (Image via IMAGO)

Although Holger Rune is ranked much higher than Sumit Nagal, the Indian has a good chance of shocking the world and registering a victory, as Rune has had poor form lately. He recently lost to Fabian Marozsan in the first round of the 2024 Miami Open. However, before that, he reached the quarterfinals of the Indian Wells. 

Thus, the match between Rune and Nagal will be a very interesting one to watch out for.

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