TAMPERE/STARNBERG, July 23, 2023
Sumit Nagal of India is the champion of the 41st edition of the Tampere Open, the longest-running ATP Challenger Tour tournament in history. The World No. 231 defeated Czech youngster Dalibor Svrcina 6-4, 7-5 in Sunday’s singles final at the Tampereen Tenniskeskus Oy.
Nagal, No. 7 seed of the €73,000 clay-court event, battled his way to the championship match through the bottom half of the draw with wins over Czech wild card entry Jiri Vesely, Joao Lucas Reis da Silva from Brazil, Tunisia’s Aziz Dougaz and Spaniard Daniel Rincon.
The 25-year-old Jhajjar native converted five of his 10 break-point opportunities and won 54 per cent of the total points played to seal victory in one hour and 44 minutes.
Sieh dir diesen Beitrag auf Instagram an
“Dalibor is a very tricky player competing at a very high level with crafty hands,” said Nagal afterwards. “In the beginning I was rushing a bit and I did a lot of errors. I was trying too much and not respecting myself enough. The longer the match went, I started to get feed to his rhythm and I was able to control my shot selection as well as my mindset.”
By winning his fourth ATP Challenger career title, his second of the season following his triumph in Rome, Italy in late April, Nagal earned €9,880 in prize money as well as 75 ATP Ranking points.
“It feels that I am on right path,” the champion said. “It’s still a long way to go but winning two titles in the same year is definitely something, which helps to climb up the ranking again.”
