Social media plea works, Sumit Nagal gets UK visa appointment to play in Wimbledon

India Ace tennis player Sumit Nagal on Monday received a UK visa appointment after a plea on social media. On Monday, Nagal took to X (formerly Twitter) pleading to the UK visa authority for an appointment after he failed to get one.

Nagal is set to represent India in Wimbledon 2024 which is scheduled from July 1-14 at the All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in London.

However, soon after the tweet, the UK visa authority took swift action and cleared Nagal’s request for an appointment for which the Indian Davis Cup player thanked through a tweet on X deleting the previous one.

“Thank You Christian Scott mam (Deputy High Commissioner of British High Commission in India), British High Commission in India, and VFSGlobal for your swift response on my UK visa appointment request. Really appreciate your help!” Nagal wrote on Twitter.

The 26-year-old Nagal achieved a new career-high men’s singles ranking of 80 in the latest ATP Rankings released on Monday on the back of a solid performance in the Monte Carlo Masters.

Nagal made it to the main draw of the Monte Carlo Masters after beating Italy’s Flavio Cobolli and Argentina’s Facundo Diaz Acosta. Nagal was only the third Indian to compete in the main draw of the Masters event on clay after Vijay Amritraj (1977) and Ramesh Krishnan (1982).

In the opening round of the Monte Carlo Masters, he defeated World No. 38 Matteo Arnald of Italy to become the first Indian to win an ATP Masters 1000 match on clay since the series’ inception in 1990.

However, Nagal lost to seventh seed and 2023 runner-up Holger Rune in the second round. As a result of his performance, Nagal rose 13 spots in the ATP Rankings.