Who is Sumit Nagal, the Indian tennis star making history in Monte Carlo?

Oli Dickson Jefford
Sumit Nagal is one of the fastest-rising players on the ATP Tour
Sumit Nagal has risen up the rankings in recent months

India is a country rich in tennis history and Sumit Nagal could become the latest trailblazer from the nation to make a significant mark in the sporting world.

Following on from the likes of Vijay Amritraj, Leander Paes, and Sania Mirza, Nagal is the latest player from the world’s most populous country to represent his nation on the global stage.

But who is Nagal, who is set to take on top 10 star Holger Rune in the second round of the Monte Carlo Masters?

Early years

Born in Jhajjar, Haryana, in August 1997, Nagal’s father, Suresh, is a schoolteacher while his mother, Krishna Devi, is a homemaker.

First picking up a racket at the age of eight, the 26-year-old showed huge potential from a young age and just two years after he first started playing the sport, he was invited to play in an academy run by Indian tennis legend Mahesh Bhupathi.

Nagal was based in Bengaluru from 2008 to 2010 as part of Bhupathi’s academy, but, when the academy shut down, he moved to Toronto to pursue his tennis dreams.

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Junior success

Having been coached by Bobby Mahal in Canada, Nagal’s career began to take off while still a junior in 2015.

Early Futures titles came in India in the opening stages of that year, but it was on the Grand Slam stage that he first attracted major attention.

That same year, alongside Vietnamese partner Lý Hoàng Nam, he claimed the boys’ doubles crown at Wimbledon, becoming only the sixth Indian to win a junior Grand Slam title.

He followed that up with more singles and doubles success at Futures level, before making his India Davis Cup debut in 2016.

Challenger stalwart

Nagal has been a fixture on the Challenger Tour for the best part of a decade, not until recently able to consistently breakthrough onto the ATP Tour, but proving a formidable opponent on the ATP Challenger circuit.

After winning nine Futures-level titles, Nagal beat Britain’s Jay Clarke to win his first Challenger-level tournament in Bangalore in November 2017.

He has won five Challenger titles, with a strong surge in recent months; three of his five titles have come since the start of 2023, including in Chennai this season, while he’s reached a further two finals.

US Open and Olympic milestones

A significant step came at the US Open in 2019, where he came through qualifying to reach a first Slam main draw, impressing in a four-set loss to all-time great Roger Federer.

And, receiving direct entry in the covid-lockdown tournament 12 months later, he won a Slam match for the first time, beating Bradley Klahn before losing to eventual champion Dominic Thiem.

The following two years were largely injury disrupted but he was handed a spot at the Tokyo Olympics, where he became the first Indian man since 1996 to win a singles match, seeing off Denis Istomin.

2024: Recent rise, Monte Carlo history

Nagal qualified for the Australian Open for the second time in his career in January and, in stunning 31st seed Alexander Bublik, became the first Indian man in 35 years to beat a seeded player at a Grand Slam.

That run, alongside Challenger victory in Chennai, saw him finally crack the top 100 in the ATP Rankings, having been ranked as low as 506th the previous year due to injury.

And his momentum has continued in Monte Carlo this week, coming from qualifying to become the first Indian in 42 years to reach the main draw.

Then, by beating Matteo Arnaldi 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 in Monday’s opening round, he became the first Indian in history to win a Masters 1000 match on clay.

He faces an uphill task against 2023 runner-up Rune next, but India’s next star looks to be well and truly upon us.