Mumbai: At one point in the second set against Sumit Nagal on Sunday, Tomas Machac was attacking the Indian’s first serves like second serves. A quick jump and a step inside, getting closer to the baseline, and then ripping a return winner. First, off the forehand. Then off the backhand.
On the fast hard courts of Melbourne, one quality player pouncing on the unthreatening serves of the other usually signals a one-sided affair. And for a large part of Nagal’s first round encounter at the Australian Open, it indeed was.
In a match that lasted two hours and five minutes at the 1573 Arena in Melbourne Park on Sunday, Nagal lost 6-3, 6-1, 7-5 against 26th seed Machac of the Czech Republic. It also ended India’s singles challenge at the Australian Open.
At the season-opening Grand Slam last year, Nagal had become the first Indian player to beat a seeded opponent in men’s singles since Ramesh Krishnan in 1989, having gone past the then world No.27 Alexander Bublik. That victory and show in Australia provided a springboard for the Indian to break into the top 100 of the ATP rankings for the first time.
On Sunday, however, the world No.91 came up against a 24-year-old player who, since last October, has beaten Carlos Alcaraz and Grigor Dimitrov on the tour.
That class from the current world No.25 was on display as Machac cruised to the first set without facing a single break point, even though Nagal started the match fairly solid. He dropped just two points in his early service games, but his serve, which remains a work in progress, was then broken twice.
Machac continued in the same vein in the second set, cashing in on Nagal’s struggles to hold serve. The Czech player found a break in the third game and went up 3-1. He broke the Nagal serve again at the next time of asking, to love this time, firing those lethal return winners before holding his own to win the set 6-1 in 36 minutes.
The Indian came back strongly in the third set. He started off by holding serve at 30 before breaking Machac’s serve for the first time in the match. Another hold of serve saw Nagal go up 3-0. Machac did get back the break to go on serve at 3-4, only for Nagal to break immediately after.
From being down two sets to love, Nagal had a chance to pull one back and take the match into the fourth set. But the Czech was determined to finish the match in straight sets, winning the next four games on the trot to secure his spot in the second round.
Machac eventually registered 38 winners to Nagal’s 19, though the Czech littered more unforced errors (33 to 20).
The opening round loss means Nagal will drop 40 rankings points, which could leave him at risk of falling out of the top 100 rankings.
