Indian No. 1 tennis player Sumit Nagal secured an emphatic straight-set win against the USA’s Mitchell Krueger in the first round match of the French Open 2025 qualifiers on Tuesday, 20 May. (More Tennis News)
Coming into the back off a four-match winning streak, Krueger was heavy favourites for Tuesday’s clash, but world No. 170 Nagal completely dominated proceedings despite being the underdog, winning 6-1, 6-1 in the fixture.
The match started with both players holding serve, and Nagal took a commanding three-game lead early on that Krueger could not recover from. Despite scraping to his first win in the fifth game, Krueger, ranked 141 in the world, could not make a comeback, losing the first set 6-1.
The second set started in a nervy manner, with a 10-minute-long opener barely going in Nagal’s favour. Krueger’s bullet strokeplay bore fruit for the first and only time in the match during the second game, shutting out Nagal completely.
The Indian player responded with a narrow win in the third game, and from then on, it was the Sumit Nagal show. The 27-year-old was unplayable in the final moments, dropping just one game to storm his way to another 6-1 win, sealing the opening match with some ease.
With such an emphatic win against a much stronger opponent in his first game, Sumit Nagal has set a benchmark that he will need to satisfy in the upcoming matches.
For now, he will face Jurij Rodionov of Austria in the next round, with the latter defeating the USA’s Christopher Eubanks 7-6(7-4), 6-3 in the opening match.
The match between Nagal and ATP world no. 225 Rodionov will take place on Thursday, 22 May, from 2:30 PM IST onwards.
A victory in the next round would bring Nagal closer to securing a historic spot in the main draw of the French Open 2025, which begins on 8 June.
