Sumit Nagal gets tough draw in maiden Wimbledon main draw

NEW DELHI: India's top singles player Sumit Nagal is poised to make his debut in the men's singles main draw at Wimbledon, where he will face off against Serbia's Miomir Kecmanovic, who holds a higher ranking, in the opening round.
Nagal, currently ranked 72nd in the world, faces a challenging path ahead as he finds himself in the same section of the draw as top seed and World No.1 Jannik Sinner. If Nagal progresses far enough, he could potentially encounter the Italian in the third round, PTI reported.
The first obstacle for Nagal will be no easy feat, as he is set to compete against world No. 53 Kecmanovic. The Serbian player has previously defeated Nagal in their only encounter, which took place at the ATP 250 event in Cologne, Germany, four years prior.
Should Nagal advance beyond the first round, he will face the victor of the opening round match between Spain's Pablo Carreno Busta, ranked 796th, and the Netherlands' Tallon Griekspoor, who holds the 26th position in the world rankings.
Nagal, who is bound for the Olympics, had previously competed in the men's singles qualifiers at Wimbledon in 2018, where he suffered a first-round loss to Poland's Kamil Majchrzak.
This season has been a remarkable one for Nagal thus far. He secured a spot in the main draw of the Australian Open earlier this year and pulled off a stunning upset against 31st-seeded Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan in the first round, becoming the first Indian male tennis player to defeat a seeded player in a Slam in 35 years.
Following his Australian Open success, Nagal went on to clinch the Chennai Open ATP Challenger title, propelling him into the top-100 rankings.
In the men's doubles category, seasoned Indian player Rohan Bopanna and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden, who are seeded second, are set to face the French duo of Adrian Mannarino and Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in the first round.
Bopanna and Ebden, the reigning Australian Open champions, reached the semifinals of Wimbledon last year.
Another Indian player, N Sriram Balaji, who will partner with Bopanna at the Paris Olympics, will team up with British player Luke Johnson to take on the fourth-seeded Croatian-Salvadorian pair of Mate Pavic and Marcelo Arevalo, the winners of this year's French Open.
Yuki Bhambri and his French partner Albano Olivetti are scheduled to play against the Kazakh duo of Bublik and Alexander Shevchenko, while Nagal and Serbia's Dusan Lajovic will face Spain's Pedro Martinez and Jaume Munar in the first round.