Chennai, Feb 6:
Rising Indian tennis star Sumit Nagal’s progress and entry into the top 100 would depend on his fitness and speed, feels Indian tennis legend Anand Amritraj.
Nagal made headlines last month after making it to the main draw of the Australian Open singles before getting knocked out in the second round.
“Sumit Nagal’s progress depends on his fitness and quickness because he cannot overpower too many people. He has to outlast them and construct the points,” Anand said on the sidelines of a Davis Cup celebration event at the Madras Cricket Club here on Monday.
Currently ranked 121 in the ATP singles ranking, Anand backed Nagal to make it to the top-100 in the upcoming six months, besides expecting him to be a regular face in the Grand Slams.
“He is very close to making it to the top-100 in the next six months, which will earn him regular chances into the Grand Slams,” Anand said. He praised Nagal’s ground strokes, his forehand and backhand, but advised him to work on his serve.
“He was a reserve in my Davis Cup team as the captain in 2018. A very nice boy with a very good ground stroke, much line Somdev (Devvarman).
” He doesn’t have a huge serve, but he is very quick and is solid off both forehand and backhand, which makes him a smaller version of Somdev. We need to wait and see how far he can get with that game type.
“I will keep a close eye on him on how much he is improving. His serve needs to get bigger, and he needs one finishing shot – the forehand probably,” he stated.
Besides Nagal, Anand also backed two more Indian players from the Tamil Nadu — Ramkumar Ramanathan and Mukund Sasikumar — to make it to the top 100 in the coming months.
While he lauded Ramkumar’s serve, he feels that the 29-year-old needs to work on his forehand and backhand.
“I will tell the same thing about Ramkumar. His serve is big anyway. He needs to improve his first serve percentage and also work on that forehand to put the ball away, besides being more consistent off the backhand.”
“Mukund Sasikumar is also very talented. No reason why he cannot be a top-100 player. All three boys have the potential to make it to the top-100. Even if the two of them make it to that level, it would be great for Indian tennis,” he signed off.
