Sumit Nagal is making headlines for Indian tennis and for his results earlier this season he has earned a spot in the main draw for the Roland Garros. Nagal will be first Indian men’s singles player to take part in the main draw of the French Open since Prajnesh Gunneswaran back in 2019.
The 26-years-old Indian has a tough test right away in in Paris, with 18th seeded Karen Khachanov on the other side of the net on Monday afternoon.
Tough draw for Nagal
Sumit Nagal have had some great runs this year, not at least reaching the third round of the Monte Carlo Masters where he eventually lost in three sets to an experienced Holger Rune. He also reached his career-high ATP ranking of 80th earlier this year. However, early exits in Bordeaux and Geneva has thrown some doubts on his current form.
He knows he can challenge a lot of the top level players but probably he would have wished for an easier start to the Roland Garros tournament.
Karen Khachanov is an experienced player and he’s usually solid in these early rounds of Grand Slams. His strong baseline game and of course his serve will be tough to deal with for Nagal.
The 28-year-old Russian is now ranked 18 in the world and has shown great consistency, reaching at least the quarter-finals of all four Grand Slams in his career.
Most recently he’s coming off a fourth round exit of the Rome Masters against Tabilo.
Predictions and Odds
Like the bookmakers, we don’t give Nagal (odds 7.00 | +600) much hope here to advance to the second round and we believe Khachanov (1.10 | -1000) will progress.
Nagal has the talent to claim a set here and we’ll go for a smaller, sneaky bet of 3-1 set betting Khachanov at odds 3.45.
