Monte-Carlo Masters 2024: Holger Rune vs Sumit Nagal; Preview, Prediction, Head-to-Head

It’s Holger Rune vs the hopes of 1.42 billion people. The Danish tennis sensation is all set to take on the talented top-ranked Indian tennis star, Sumit Nagal in the second round of the Monte Carlo Masters on Wednesday, April 10. “Milestones are nice” – these were Nagal’s words after his recent victory against Italy’s Matteo Arnaldi in the first round of the tournament. Talking about milestones, with this victory he became the first-ever Indian to win a main draw match at the Monte Carlo Masters. Can he extend his run further in this tournament?

For Holger Rune, facing Nagal on clay will surely not be like facing Nadal on clay. This will be his first match on the clay court since July last year. He had finished as runners-up in Monte Carlo last year. Rune will now look forward to repeat a similar kind of run this year as well.

Holger Rune vs Sumit Nagal: Preview

Before we jump into any predictions, Holger Rune has already made a bold prediction for his clay court season. He recently said, “One bold prediction for the clay court season to win the French Open.” Rune enjoys playing on both clay and hard courts, but his favorite tournament has always been the Roland Garros. But before getting into the mega clay court event, can the world number 7 make a good start to his clay court season in Monte Carlo?

Holger Rune’s lethal forehand and backhands are a bliss to watch. But talking about serves, he has a win percentage of 72% on his first serve and 53% on his second serve. If we look at his overall record so far. The 20-year-old tennis star has hit 862 aces and 591 double faults so far in his career. His best result this year has come at the Brisbane International where he reached the final. Although he made a few deep runs in the tournaments this year,  the Dane is yet to win a title in his 2024 season.

While Sumit Nagal has been in red-hot form this year. This 26-year-old lad from New Delhi, India had created history at the 2024 AO by becoming the first Indian since 1989 to beat a seeded player (Alexander Bublik) in a Grand Slam match. Just after that, he won the Chennai Open ATP Challenger to make way into the Top 100 of the PIF ATP rankings for the first time in his career. This will be Nagal’s second appearance at an ATP Masters 1000 event. Previously he got into the main draw in Indian Wells as a lucky loser after Rafael Nadal pulled out of that tournament.

Sumit Nagal is in fact the third Indian to feature in the main draw of the Monte Carlo Masters after Vijay Amritraj (1977) and Ramesh Krishnan in 1982. His recent victory against Arnaldi made him the first-ever India to win an ATP Masters 1000 match on clay surface since 1990. Plenty of milestones were achieved by the new world number 93 this year.

Talking about his previous game, Nagal has managed to hit only 1 ace and has committed just a single double fault throughout the match. His win percentage on the first serve was 55% (35-64) while on the second serve, it was 72% (26/36). Previously he reached the qualifiers in  Monte Carlo in 2021. Can he outclass ‘The Viking’ and create yet another historic moment in his career?

Rune vs Nagal: Head-to-Head

Both the players have met each other only once in their careers so far. Holger Rune defeated Sumit Nagal by a 7-5,6-3 margin when they met last at the 2023 Davis Cup. It was a highly competitive match and the Indian tennis star has come a long way since then. Nagal isn’t going to let Rune ease into this match. His aggressive style of play from the baseline will be something to look out for against Holger Rune.

But when it comes to the experience of playing on the clay courts on big occasions, Holger Rune will always have the upper hand. For Nagal clay is love. During an interview with Tennis TV, he once revealed, “When I was young, I started playing tennis on clay when I was 8, 9 years old. I didn’t get much clay when I moved to Canada. But I have been living in Germany for the past 10 years. Somehow, I fell in love with clay. I move well, it gives me extra confidence and I feel like clay gives me that.” So this is surely going to be an intriguing contest to watch.

Prediction: Rune to win this nail-biting contest

Sumit Nagal has won 4 of his last 5 matches, but playing against the world number 7 and winning the contest will be really a tough ask for the young lad. But having said that, it doesn’t mean he’d not give a fight against one of the upcoming superstars of the game. Nagal is quite decent at the net, so don’t be surprised if he comes in quite a bit and tries to make Rune pass him. We can expect a close encounter.

Holger Rune currently has a win-loss record of 13-7, but he hasn’t played on the clay yet. While Sumit Nagal has a record of 19-9 with 4-1 on the clay surfaces this year. Nagal’s journey has been quite inspiring for lots of young Indian tennis players. He was handpicked by the former doubles no.1, Mahesh Bhupati to his academy when he was a kid. Now he has only one goal in his career.

“My goal in tennis is to do really well, so people aren’t saying that India is only good at cricket. I want to be the one who leads that,” – Sumit Nagal. Can he topple the Danish tennis star and carry forward his journey in Monte Carlo? Well, Indian fans will surely be over the moon if he gets it right against Rune.

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