Young Czech tennis players are pushing for elite companies. A month ago, Tomáš Macháč had a successful premiere at the Masters 1000 tournament in Indian Wells, California, and today Jiří Lehečka will experience this challenge for the first time on clay in Monte Carlo.
The 20-year-old Czech tennis player attracted attention at the beginning of February in Rotterdam, where he won five matches in qualifying and also tormented star Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas in the semifinals.
Lehečka burst into the top 100 and made an impression with fearless play.
In the next three smaller tournaments, however, he always lost in the first round and did not even manage the Davis Cup in Argentina. He has only now shaken the “hangover” from the life success gained in Europe’s largest port.
On the grounds of the Principality of Monaco, in the famous Monte Carlo Country Club with the central court of Rainier III. for ten thousand spectators.
In qualifying, the tennis player from Kněžmost in Central Bohemia dealt with tough opponents. First, he turned the duel with the experienced Swiss Henri Laaksonen, in a direct battle to advance to the main competition, he easily sent the qualifying number one from the game, the 63rd player of the world, Benjamin Bonzi from France.
“Dominant performance. Lehečka won 70 percent of the points after the first serve and took the favorite service four times,” the Czech tennis player praised the official website of the tournament and described him as one of the young rifles to pay attention to.
Lehečka will play in the fourth ATP tournament this season. He presented himself at the Australian Open, where he managed a three-part qualification and tormented the famous Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov in the first round, in the aforementioned Rotterdam and a week ago in Marrakesh, where he fell with the German Phillipp Kohlschreiber.
However, Monte Carlo will be his first career “thousand”, ie the highest category tournament after grand slams.
Lehečka, the 99th player of the current world rankings, will enter the tennis cream this afternoon on court number 2 in a duel against a famous opponent. He tries to surprise eleven-year-old Belgian David Goffin.
The man who played during the career quarterfinals in three of the four grand slams.
With the former world number seven, it has not looked very good in recent months, Goffin has bought defeats and dropped to the tail of the top fifty in the ranking. But he came to life admirably on clay and raised the winning trophy overhead in Marrakesh on Sunday.
His sixth in his career and his first in fourteen months.
“I’m very happy and proud. I’ve played a lot of tough matches, but in the end I have a title. It gave me a lot of confidence for the clay season,” Goffin suggested, definitely not wanting to be written off yet.
The Belgian routine will be the favorite at the Monaco orange crumbs, but the world of tennis is hungrily and curiously waiting for Leheček’s performance.
“This is his first start on the Masters 1000. Another young talent that we have to keep an eye on. Maybe we both need it. The Czech Republic needs a new big player,” wrote the relevant account, relevant Tennis Stats and Info. already a somewhat more promising state of Czech men’s tennis after the end of Tomáš Berdych’s career in the autumn of 2019.
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