CHENNAI:
Sumit Nagal hardly broke a sweat as he thrashed Netherlands'
Colin Van Beem
6-3, 6-0 in the
ITF Futures
final at the
Madras Cricket Club
on Saturday. Nagal, who was the top seed in the tournament, was returning after a shoulder injury that had kept him out of action for almost six months. Though he took time to get used to the Chennai heat and humidity, the Delhi-lad saved his best for the last.
Assembly Election Results
Colin had the chance to break Nagal early on. But the Indian saved the two breakpoints and held on to take a 2-1 lead. In the next game, Colin was ahead 40-15 on his serve but two forehand returns from Nagal took the score to deuce. The Dutchman, though, managed to win the game with two deep serves followed by a forehand winner. Nagal kept mounting the pressure and finally in the eighth game he got the break when the Dutchman's forehand went wide. Nagal held serve in the next game to take the set.
Colin took a long break between sets and when he came back he seemed to have lost the mojo to fight. Nagal broke him thrice in no time to seal the match. The 20-year old lost only 9 points in the second set to win the match.
"More than the title I am happy to get my rhythm back after the injury. I look forward to the next Futures in Chennai next week. Hopefully these two weeks will give me enough practice before I represent India at the Asian Indoor Games," said Nagal.
Colin said that the only thing he needs to focus more when he comes back next week. "I went to the locker room after the first set but I just couldn't focus anymore. In my head, I had already lost and in situations like that you can do nothing. I need to work on my mentality. I needed to fight after going down in the first set," the Dutch said.
Start a Conversation
Post comment