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India's campaign in the Tokyo Olympics tennis competition came to an end when Sumit Nagal lost to world No. 2 Daniil Medvedev of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) in straight sets on Monday.
Nagal, who had beaten Uzbekistan's Denis Istomin in the opening round, went down 6-2, 6-1 to the second seed in just over an hour. Nagal was the lone hope for India after the women's doubles pair of Sania Mirza and Ankita Raina lost to the Kichenok twins of Ukraine -- Lyudmyla and Nadiia -- 0-6, 7-6(0) 10-8. Nagal's challenge was snuffed out on Monday by a player who is far superior in ranking and standard of play. The 23-year-old Nagal is ranked 154th in the world according to the latest ATP rankings. Medvedev, who had reached the Australian Open final early this year, was too strong for the Indian who had taken a set off Roger Federer in the 2019 US Open. But there were no such heroics for Nagal as Medvedev broke his service twice in the first set and wrapped it up in 30 minutes. Nagal, who struck four well-executed forehand winners, committed 12 unforced errors to four by Medvedev and also forced the Indian to commit 13 mistakes. The second set was more one-sided as Medvedev broke serve early though Nagal managed to a few good shots, even catching Medvedev off guard on a couple of occasions. But the gap between the two players was too big for Nagal to breach on this occasion and he went down rather tamely. --IANS bsk/akm ( 269 Words) 2021-07-26-12:56:21 (IANS)
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