Nagal beats heat and Molcan to enter Aus Open main draw

India's Sumit Nagal upset the 14th seed and former World No. 38, Slovalia's Alex Molcan 6-4, 6-4 in the final qualifying round of the Australian Open to enter the main draw.

He became the first Indian to qualify for the main draw of any Grand Slam since 2021.

In the qualifiers, he didn't drop a set and produced his best tennis in extremely hot conditions in Melbourne against Molcan on Friday.

Nagal cruised past Molcan in two hours and three minutes, and won the match after his opponent double faulted at 30-40 in the 10th game of the second set.

He will commence his Australian Open campaign against Kazakhstan's World No. 31 Alexander Bublik in the first round.

World No. 139 in singles, this is Nagal's second main draw appearance in the season's first Grand Slam after his entry in 2021.

Nagal went down to Lithuania's Ricardas Berankis in the opening round 2-6, 5-7, 3-6 that year.

Nagal had also made it to the US Open main draw in 2019 and 2020.

In 2019, Nagal had stretched legendary Roger Federer to four sets at the Flushing Meadows before losing 6-4, 1-6, 2-6, 4-6.

However, a year later, the Indian managed to enter the second round of the season's final Grand Slam beating host nation's Bradley Klahn in the first round 6-1, 6-3, 3-6, 6-1.

But Nagal went down to second seed and eventual champion Dominic Thiem 6-3, 6-3, 6-2 in the second round.

The Australian Open, the first Grand Slam of the year runs from January 14-28.