Czech men’s tennis is disappearing from the Top 100 of the ATP rankings. But the future is more than promising.

It has been a few years since the last time a Czech tennis player was in the top ten of the ATP rankings. Nowadays, Czechs in the men’s category have cleared the positions in the top 100. But the future does not look as tragic as it may seem at first sight. Young hopefuls are knocking on the door of the elite 100.

It has been 9 years since the pair of Radek Stepanek and Tomas Berdych made Czech fans very happy. In 2012 and 2013 they managed to win the most prestigious team competition, the Davis Cup.

First, they beat a strong Spain in Prague by 3:2 and a year later they defended the title by the same ratio in Serbia, for which Novak Djokovic also played.

Their successor was to be Jiri Vesely. But he was the highest ranked singles player in the ATP rankings in April 2015 at 35th. For most of his career, he has been at the bottom of the world’s top 100, but he will drop out of it in Monday’s new edition of the rankings. He will be ranked at around 122nd.

This was caused by today’s loss to Finland’s Ruusuvuori at the tournament in Pune, India, where Vesely was defending last year’s triumph and will lose a significant points gain.

The future of Czech tennis

But the future of Czech men’s tennis is more than promising. Tomáš Macháč, who is only 21 years old, will become the new Czech number one on Monday. Tomáš has already been a draw at the last Davis Cup, where he played excellent matches against higher ranked players, and he also played at the Tokyo Olympics. He is currently ranked 116th.

Twenty-year-old Jiri Lehecka is ranked 138th in the ATP rankings, having also had a taste of the Davis Cup atmosphere and successfully qualifying for the Australian Open for the first time this year.

Junior Jakub Mensik also had an excellent showing at the Australian Open. The 16-year-old tennis player made it through to the final and is currently ranked third in the junior rankings.

Other young tennis players who could one day follow their predecessors and attack the world’s top 100 are 19-year-old Dalibor Svrcina (300th in the ATP rankings) and 20-year-old Jonáš Forejtek (309th)

In 2019, Forejtek and Svrcina won the junior doubles at the Australian Open. In the same year, Forejtek and Lehecka managed to win the junior doubles at Wimbledon. Forejtek even has a junior singles title as well, as he managed to win the US Open in 2019.

So let’s hope that the crisis in men’s tennis is only temporary and won’t last long. It certainly takes longer to make the transition from juniors to men than it does for juniors to women, but hopefully we will soon see the successors of Berdych and Stepanek.

Source:: Livesport, Wikipedia