Sumit Nagal climbs six spots to reach new career-high ranking of 129

Indian tennis player Sumit Nagal jumped six places to a career-best ranking of 129 in the latest men's singles rankings that was released by the ATP on Monday.

The 22-year-old, who has been in good form of late, reached his third straight semi-final in three weeks when he reached the last four in the ATP Challenger Campinas on Saturday. However, visibly tired, he went down to 325-ranked Juan Ficovich 4-6, 1-6 in a one-sided contest.

Earlier, he had won the ATP Challenger Buenos Aires last week and ended as the runner-up in the final of the Challenger Banja Luka tournament. He now has the highest number of semi-final appearances on the ATP Challenger Tour in 2019.

Nagal's rise since the start of the year

Starting the year ranked 347, Nagal through consistent showings, broke into the top 150 after winning the Buenos Aires Challenger meet last month.

His rise started from the Tallahasee Tennis Challenger event, where he reached the quarters, and since then his career has been on an upward rise. A semi-final appearance in the St Jospeh's Challenger tournament was followed by yet another top-four finish in the Samarkand Challengers. The semi-final appearance in the Challengers at Campinas was his seventh top-four finish this year.

Nagal made headlines after a spirited showing against Roger Federer in the first round of the US Open this year, where he gave the Swiss maestro a fight, taking the game to four sets.

India's Prajnesh Gunneswaran also jumped two rankings and is now 82 in the ATP table. The only other Indian in the top 200 is Ramkumar Ramanathan, who jumped one place to 182.