By M. Sudharshan
CHENNAI: India’s top-ranked men’s singles player Sumit Nagal continued his impressive run as he made his second successive Chennai Open Challenger semifinal on Friday. The second seed beat Dominik Palan of the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-3 in the quarterfinals at the SDAT Tennis Stadium and will take on Dalibor Svrcina for a place in the final.
Meanwhile, local lad Mukund Sasikumar, who enjoyed a dream run in the competition beating two higher-ranked players, exited after losing to third-seed Svrcina of the Czech Republic 7-6(6), 2-6, 4-6 in another quarterfinal match.
Nagal had lost to Palan the last time they played in the quarterfinals of the Pune Open Challenger in March last year, but that didn’t seem to have any psychological effect on the Indian.
After holding the respective service games early on, Palan took the role of the aggressor. He troubled Nagal with big returns and had a game-point in the third game. However, Nagal held on and saved a break-point to lead 2-1. He strengthened his position by breaking the world No. 330 in the following game, who committed a flurry of unforced errors.
In the ninth game, the Czech kept testing Nagal on his serve and was a point away from breaking. But coming to big points, unforced errors kept letting Palan down as Nagal took charge to win the first set.
The Indian drew first blood in the opening game of the second set.
At 3-2, Palan had a chance to level the scores when he had a break point. Palan rushed to the net but his volley was within Nagal’s reach.
