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8 things to know about Sumit Nagal

Sumit Nagal

While Leander Paes and Sania Mirza were tasting success in the mixed doubles and women's doubles respectively at Wimbledon, a little-known Indian junior worked his way through to the final weekend and came away with the Wimbledon Boys Doubles title.

Sumit Nagal and Hoang Ly beat Reilly Opelka and Akira Santillan 7-6(4), 6-4 in Sunday's final ending Opelka's hopes of completing a sweep after the 6 ft 10 in American junior won the Boys Singles title.

1. Nagal is 17 years old and is the sixth Indian to win a junior Grand Slam title, joining the likes of Ramanathan Krishnan (Wimbledon, 1954), Ramesh Krishnan (French Open and Wimbledon, 1979), Leander Paes (Wimbledon 1990, U.S. Open 1991), Yuki Bhambri (Australian Open, 2009), and Sania Mirza (Wimbledon, 2003).

2. Sumit was born in Haryana. His father, Suresh, is a retired Army Havildar, his mother Krishna a housewife, while his sister Sakshi Shokeen is married. Since the final was not televised, his parents had to follow his win over live scoring on the Internet.

3. The youngster has been mentored by Mahesh Bhupathi, who spotted him at the age of 10 and trained at the Mahesh Bhupathi Tennis Academy. He has also trained at the  Schuttler Waske Tennis Academy in Offenbach, Germany and the Galo Blanco Academy in Spain.

4. Do you wanna know what Nagal was thinking during the final as the duo got closer to the trophy, "I was just thinking of who would get to hold the cup - I was thinking - Are we going to kiss it or not? I am just glad it's over," Nagal told NDTV in an interview.

5. Nagal's idol is the current World No. 1 Novak Djokovic, who won the men's singles title at Wimbledon on Sunday. Nagal got the opportunity to take a picture with the Serb during the Championship Ball on Sunday night. 

6.. He is currently ranked No. 745 in the ATP rankings - a career high for Nagal and won his first ITF Futures singles title in Hyderabad last month. He is currently ranked No. 31 in the ITF World Junior rankings, though he has been as high as No. 23 in the world.

7. Sumit lost in the first round of the Boys Singles event at Wimbledon, going down 7-5, 2-6, 4-6 to Juan Pablo Ficovoch. His best performance in the junior events in singles was at this year's Australian Open in January where he reached the third round.

8. He is coached by Mariano Delfino and says clay is his favourite surface - not surprising if you see his training stints have been mostly in Europe.

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