ATP 250 Grand Prix Hassan II: Sumit Nagal starts clay season with a win

Sumit Nagal came back from behind to clinch victory over Corentin Moutet of France to kickstart his favourite clay season at the ATP 250 Grand Prix Hassan II in Marrakech, Morocco on Tuesday.

Nagal, who attained his career-best ranking of 95 on Monday, made a solid comeback after dropping the first set to win this three-setter (4-6, 6-3, 6-2) against the world no.99 French player. This is his eighth top-100 victory of his career.

This was the fourth meeting between the two players and Nagal was trailing 1-2 in the head-to-head but is on level terms with this victory over Frenchmen after a long gap of five years.

Nagal had a shaky start in the first set as he didn't have a good serving game and after saving three break points he finally went down in the seventh game as Moutet got a break on the fourth time of asking and won the first set 6-3.

Nagal quickly returned to his best with two tremendous 40-15 serving games- to regain his confidence and put pressure on Moutet, and then he won a break in the game-4 and forced the match into the decider.

The decider was much easier for Nagal as Moutet started panicking and wasn't able to return Nagal's forehand return. Nagal quickly got double breaks up and then served it to 6-2 to win the match.

He will be up against world no.61, fourth-seeded Italian player Lorenzo Sonego in the round of 16 on Wednesday. They already had a meeting a few weeks back where the Italian came on top in a three-set encounter.