Tokyo Olympics: Sumit Nagal loses to Daniil Medvedev in Tennis Men’s Singles Round 2

The world No. 160 Indian tennis player lost 6-2, 6-1 to the world No. 2 Daniil Medvedev in the men’s singles second round. Indian tennis ace Sumit Nagal’s Olympics campaign was met with an end on Monday after he lost his Men’s Singles round 2 outings against the world No 2 Daniil Medvedev India's sole hope for a medal in Men's singles category also ended.

The Russian showed complete dominance over Nagal right from the first set as the 23-year-old from Jhajjar visibly struggled to keep up with Medvedev. Despite being outplayed throughout the opening honors, Nagal was trailing 6-2 at the end of the first set with little hopes to make a comeback in the next.

The second set started off in some hope for Nagal who landed a couple of stunning forehand winners, but three doubler faults put him on the back foot once again as Medvedev went up to 2-0 lead, then extended to 4-1 and finished the match with a 6-1 second set, knocking out the Indian.

While it was near impossible for world no 144 to hold his ground against world no 2, Nagal did show impressive performance against former world no 33 Denis Istomin in the opening round, defeating the Uzbek player 6-4, 6-7, 6-4 on 24th July. Sumit Nagal, could not earn a single breakpoint in the match, although he did go deep in a few of Medvedev’s service games. A netted down-the-line backhand on break point meant Nagal lost his serve in the very first game of the match on court No. 1.

The 23-year old Nagal had defeated Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan in the first round, becoming the first Indian since Leander Paes at Atlanta 1996 to win an Olympics men’s singles tennis match.