Sumit Nagal exited the 2024 Australian Open in the second round of the men’s singles main draw after a 6-2, 3-6, 5-7, 4-6 loss to Chinese teenager Juncheng Shang on Thursday.
The India, who had beaten world No 27 Alexander Bublik in the opening round, won the first set, but Shang got the better of him at the end of the 2 hour 50 minute contest.
Rohan Bopanna and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden moved into the second round of the men’s doubles, beating James Duckworth and Marc Polmans 7-6 (5), 4-6, 7-6 (10-2).
The other Indian doubles pair of Vijay Sundar Prashanth and Anirudh Chandrasekar lost 3-6 4-6 to the Hungarian pair of Marton Fucsovics and Fabian Marozsan.
Meanwhile, N Sriram Balaji, who has paired up with Romania's Victor Vlad Cornea for the Grand Slam, will now begin his campaign on Friday after his scheduled encounter against Italian pair of Matteo Arnaldi and Andrea Pellegrino was postponed due to rain.
Although Nagal got the better of his Chinese opponent in the first set, the teenager began showcasing his talent at the start of the third set.
Similar to how he started the match against Bublik, Nagal continued to draw errors from Shang who was broken twice, but never played himself fully out of the game in the first set. However, Shang’s 17th unforced error of the match allowed Nagal to break him and serve for the opening set.
Shang had a chance to break the Indian No 1 but failed to capitalise on the opportunity. The Chinese player made up for it later on with a 5-2 lead by two breaks. Nagal began with an unforced error on his own serve, but held on only for Shang to serve for the second set and level the match at one-set all.
Neither Nagal nor Shang were broken in the third set until 5-5 when Shang got one over the Indian due to the latter’s backhand errors, the Chinese ultimately serving for the set and a 2-1 lead in the match.
Shang’s serve became better and more concise which ended up putting pressure on Nagal who looked to be tiring. This allowed Shang to break Nagal’s serve to take a 5-3 lead and thus serve out the set and move into the third round.
Bopanna-Ebden enter second round
Although the Indo-Australian pair won the first set, it was a nervy moment for Indian fans with Bopanna-Ebden trailing 0-5.
Polmans and Duckworth had a solid lead but Bopanna pulled out his strong serve to get things back on level terms and force a tie-breaker.
However, the Indian and Ebden were unable to hold on to the momentum in the second set, which their Australian opponents won 6-4 with ease.
Ebden managed to hold his serve well in the third set to lead at 3-2, when Bopanna almost faltered but bounced back to hold his serve as well.
Duckworth and Polmans both also ended up keeping their serve strong to restore parity between the two pairings. Bopanna dominated the 11th game to give him and Ebden a lead at 6-5, but couldn’t prevent the super tie-breaker.
However, the Indo-Australian pair didn’t have much to worry about with Bopanna’s big serve and Ebden’s winners helping them to take the third set 10-2 and move into the second round, where they will face John Millman and Edward Winter.