BRISBANE, Australia — India’s top-ranked male tennis participant is interesting to Chinese language authorities after saying he was denied a visa to compete in an Australian Open wild-card playoff event starting Nov. 24 in Chengdu.
Sumit Nagal took to social media to ask the Chinese language ambassador to India, Xu Feihong, and the Chinese language embassy to intervene on his behalf.
“I’m alleged to fly to China quickly to symbolize India on the Australian Open playoff,” Nagal posted Tuesday. “However my visa was rejected with out purpose. Your pressing assist can be a lot appreciated.”
Australian Open officers have been requested for touch upon Wednesday. The 2026 Australian Open, the primary Grand Slam occasion of the 12 months, begins Jan. 18 in Melbourne.
Relations between the 2 Asian powers and with the 2 largest populations on this planet have improved just lately. India and China final month deliberate to renew direct flights between a few of their cities after a five-year suspension because the relations between the 2 nations start to thaw.
Press Belief of India reported there’d been no speedy response from the embassy or playoff organizers.
One of many 28-year-old Nagal’s profession highlights was taking the opening set of a US Open match towards Roger Federer in 2019. However Federer gained the following three units to advance to the second spherical.
Nagal had a career-high singles rating of 68 in July 2024 however his present rating is 290. He has been a member of India’s Davis Cup workforce since 2018.
In January, he misplaced within the first spherical on the Australian Open and didn’t make it via qualifying for the French Open and Wimbledon. He gained the 2015 Wimbledon boys’ doubles title with Vietnam’s Ly Hoang Nam, changing into the sixth Indian participant to win a junior Grand Slam title.
The Australian Open’s Asia-Pacific wild-card playoff is scheduled for Nov. 24-29 on the Sichuan Worldwide Tennis Centre. It is a 16-player males’s and girls’s singles occasion and 12 groups in males’s and girls’s doubles.
In final 12 months’s Asia-Pacific playoff, additionally held in Chengdu, Zhang Shuai of China and Thailand’s Kasidit Samrej secured locations in the primary draw of the 2025 Australian Open.
Zhang defeated American McCartney Kessler within the first spherical in Melbourne earlier than shedding to Twenty fourth-seeded Yulia Putintseva within the second. Samrej, who had by no means competed at a Grand Slam venue, not even in qualifying, prolonged fifth-seeded Daniil Medvedev to 5 units earlier than shedding within the first spherical.
