Playing on his favourite surface and coming on a back of good last week, the India Number One Sumit Nagal shocked the fourth seed of the tournament
Nagal who made it to the second round in the Roseto Degli last week making it all the way from qualifying. He had defeated three local boys on the trot.
He is on a comeback spree, having a career high of 122 Nagal has slide downhill in the rankings and finds himself currently at 347.
He was up against a strong opponent in twenty year old Italian Francesco Maestrelli in the first round.
Francesco had interestingly played in India during the three challengers when he lost matches against Australians each week
The Italian who is ranked in the top 200 in the world however failed to arise to the occasion as he lost tamely 6-2,6-4
Nagal was more disciplined of the two with a first serve percentage of close to 70% while Francesco had 54% with six double faults
The Indian faces yet another young Italian Tabacco in the next round who finds himself there as his opponent Andreev (#207) retired midway
Tabacco has a Futures title in this year will be up against Nagal for the first time in his career.
A win for Nagal will take him to #320s on the ATP circuit
