Sumit Nagal. File
| Photo Credit: AP
The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has confirmed Indian player Sumit Nagal’s presence in the men’s singles event at Paris 2024 Olympics. As per Olympics.com, this will mark Nagal’s second Olympics appearance after Tokyo 2020, where he defeated Denis Istomin in the first round but lost to Daniil Medvedev in round two.
The ITF confirmed Nagal’s presence through their entry list released on July 4. The men’s and women’s singles event in Tennis at Paris Olympics, the multi-sport extravaganza starting from July 26 onwards, will feature 64 players. The top 56 eligible men’s singles players, as per ATP Rankings on June 10, secured quotas for their countries, with a maximum of four quotas available to each country.
Though 77th-ranked Nagal was 21 places behind the top 56 players when the qualifying window ended, he was able to make it among the quota winners as more than four players from multiple nations were ahead of him in the rankings and some players also withdrew from the event. Nagal was 138th in the rankings in January but has been in fine form since then. A triumph at Chennai Open this year helped him break into top 100 for the first time ever.
Ranked at number 95 in men’s singles just a week before the qualifying window ended, an ATP Challenger title win at Heilbronn Neckarcup in Germany helped him jump a massive 18 places to number 77 and brought himself in contention for a ticket to Paris. Nagal will be joining Rohan Bopanna, who will also partner with N Sriram Balaji in the men’s doubles competition, as a part of the Indian tennis team.
At the end of the qualifying window, Bopanna was ranked at world number four in men’s doubles and got his Olympic quota easily. The men’s and women’s doubles event will feature a total of 32 teams, with a maximum of two teams per nation. The first qualifiers to the Olympics were the top-10 placed teams in doubles rankings, as long as they had a partner available within the top 300 of doubles rankings. Bopanna chose 67th-ranked Balaji as his partner, and their entry was confirmed on June 19 by All India Tennis Association (AITA).
Both Bopanna and Balaji are competing at Wimbledon 2024, where the former is partnering with Matthew Ebden of Australia inmen’s doubles while Balaji has paired up with Great Britain’s Luke Johnson.
Bopanna and Balaji will later go to Hamburg and Umaag for their next ATP 500 events ahead of the Paris Olympics.
Nagal also feautured in Wimbledon but…