Bengaluru Open: Defending champ Nagal hopes to strike form

BENGALURU: Moldavian Radu Albot along with Argentina’s Marco Trungelliti will highlight the US $ 150,000 Bengaluru Open starting here on Monday.

This year the event sees the prize money being hiked by US $50,000 making it the biggest prize money ATP Challenger Tour event in the country and also boosts Bengaluru’s chance to emerge as a true heir of Chennai Open legacy.

With Chennai Open shifting to Pune, Bengaluru and the money on offer along with most importantly the ATP Points has been able to attract a decent bunch of players who will all be interested in picking up 125 points on offer.

Albot (ranked 100 in the world) a winner of six singles Challengers title has many first to his name. He was the first to win a Challengers title and enter Grand Slam main draw (US Open 2014) for his country. While few will forget Trungelliti’s midnight dash involving driving close to 10 hours to reach French Open after a last minute spot opened up. Despite reaching near midnight with grandma and mother in tow, he went on to win the match next day showing little signs of fatigue. But since then both the players have failed to build up making the event and points on offer an enticing prospect.

Then there is last year’s champion Sumit Nagal who has had his share of up and downs this season forcing him to seek a wild card to make it to the event. Interestingly, he will face the 2017 runner-up Britain’s Jay Clarke in the first round. Nagal, whose surprise pairing with Leander Paes for the Asian Games was questioned widely by the players, said he is not taking any pressure of being a defending champion.

“I had been struggling this season so I started working with a new team this September. Now, I think I am playing well and I am not looking at the title or being a defending champion here but will take it match by match. First round with Jay (Clarke)? Well, we had a great match last year hopefully we can put up another good show,” Nagal said.