Great! Jiri Lehecka advances to the eighth round of the Australian Open

Twenty-one year old Jiri Lehecka is showing incredible performances at this year’s Australian Open. He managed to reach the eighth round of the tournament in his second appearance at this Grand Slam. In the third round he took on the world number 12, the British Cameron Norrie. Barbora Krejcikova also reached the eighth round, defeating Petra Kvitova.

It’s like a fairy tale for Jiri Lehecka. He was a big underdog in the first round against Borna Coric (23rd), but showed great progress from last season and dispatched the Croatian in three sets.

He then took on the well-playing American Christopher Eubanks (116th) and could look forward to a duel with his friend Cameron Norrie (12th), who like Lehecka had a very good record last season.

Last year, Lehecka finished in Australia after the first round, but subsequently experienced a big move up the world rankings and finished the season at the Champions Tournament for the young hopes of world tennis, where he reached the final.

The last time the Czech talent faced Norrie was at a preliminary tournament in Auckland just over a week ago. The British tennis player left the court happier then, beating Lehecka 2-1 in sets.

How the progression to the eighth round was born

The match with the Briton started very well for the Czech youngster. Already in the first game he won two break points, but both of them were eventually turned away by Norrie. There was great tennis full of amazing exchanges.

The Czech talent played very confidently in his transition to the net and gave the Briton problems on the return. Even in the ninth game Lehecek failed to convert a break point and therefore the first set went to a tiebreak.

The lead was changing from one side to the other, the decisive point was the eighteenth ball of the shortened game, when the Czech player made a small mistake and lost the first set – 7-6(8).

But the Mladá Boleslav native entered the second set as best he could. He took advantage of a break point in the second game of the second set and managed to finish the second set with a confident performance – 3-6.

The third set was also decided by a single break point. Norrie was able to take advantage of it in the sixth game and he did not commit any errors on his own serve – 6-3.

The match was starting to look bad for Lehecka, after all the British tennis player has much more experience with three-set matches. The Czech player also had to fight with the adversity of the fans, who celebrated his every mistake and loudly supported the British player.

Lehecka showed his extravagance in the fourth set. Norrie started to commit unnecessary errors and his serve was not very good. The twenty-one-year-old Czech talent made the most of it, refining his game, sending hard shots to his opponent and reacting at the right moment with rushes to the net.

In the seventh game, the Briton led 40:30 on Lehecek’s serve and could have turned the set around, but the Czech player did not let that happen and converted the first set point – 1-6.

The fourth set was a huge boost for Lehecka going into the decider. He took the Briton by surprise in the first game, when he took his serve away. He did it again in the fifth game and Lehecka was 1-4 up.

Norrie made the match even more dramatic by reducing it to 2-4, but it was no use. The Czech player didn’t let the match get away from him and finished the match 4-6.

Lehecka advances to the Australian Open semi-finals, where he will face the sixth seed, Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime (7th). In the second round, he was badly beaten by Lehecka’s doubles partner, Alex Molčan from Slovakia.

Sources: Australian Open, Twitter