Tomas Machac will challenge the new world No. 1 in the 2nd round in Indian Wells

Czech tennis player Tomas Machac has a successful debut at the Masters 1000 tournament. He successfully passed the qualification and defeated Australian Alexei Popyrin in the first round. But in the next round he will face a heavyweight, a fresh world number one.

Machac represented the Czech Davis Cup team in Argentina last week. He lost both of his matches in Buenos Aires. But in singles he managed to take a set against world No. 14 Diego Schwartzman on the Argentine’s favourite surface.

In California, he plays on a hard surface, which suits Machac to the max. In qualifying, he first beat Moldova’s Radu Albot and then defeated Ukraine’s Marchenko. In the 1st round he took Popyrin in two sets 6-3, 7-5.

In the second round he will meet a Top 10 player for the second time in his career. And right away, he’ll face world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev. The latter is also on the world throne thanks to Jiri Vesely, who defeated Novak Djokovic in Dubai.

The native of Beroun is currently ranked 158th in the world rankings and has a 1-4 record against Top 50 players, having beaten Daniel Evans (25th). He has already met Medvedev in training for the Australian Open.

“He hardly makes any mistakes, he plays great from behind, serves like a beast and has a great return game. It will be hard to win, but I want to do my best to get closer to winning,” said Machac, who is the best player in the world.

“I have this match experience and I can fight with players this good to win, ” he added .

The match between Tomas Machac and Daniil Medvedev starts today at 20:00.

Source: ČTK, Livesport