The Indian challenge in tennis at the Tokyo Olympics has come to an end with men's singles player Sumit Nagal losing to world number two Daniil Medvedev on Monday.
The Russian beat Nagal 6-2, 6-1 in a match that lasted under an hour.
Only Sania Mirza and Ankita Raina were the two other Indians competing in tennis at the Tokyo Olympics but the women's doubles pair was knocked out in the opening round by Lyudmyla and Nadiia Kichenok of Ukraine. The scoreline read 0-6, 7-6(0) 10-8.
Nagal's challenge was snuffed out on Monday by a player who is far superior in ranking and standard of play. The 23-year-old Nagal is ranked 154th in the world according to the latest ATP rankings.
Medvedev, who had reached the Australian Open final early this year, was too strong for the Indian who had taken a set off Roger Federer in the 2019 US Open.
But there were no such heroics for Nagal as Medvedev broke his service twice in the first set and wrapped it up in 30 minutes. Nagal, who struck four well-executed forehand winners, committed 12 unforced errors to four by Medvedev and also forced the Indian to commit 13 mistakes.
The second set was more one-sided as Medvedev broke serve early though Nagal managed to a few good shots, even catching Medvedev off guard on a couple of occasions.
But the gap between the two players was too big for Nagal to breach on this occasion and he went down rather tamely.
(With inputs from IANS)