Czech tennis players complicated their situation in the Davis Cup barrage with a doubles defeat, Lehecka won the decisive point in singles

After the first day, the Czech team led the Davis Cup barrage match against Israel 2:0. On Saturday, the team of Jaroslav Navrátil had to add a decisive third point to keep their place in the World Group for next year. The doubles match started at 11 a.m. in the Tel Aviv hall.

The winners of Friday’s singles clashes took the place of the originally announced duo of Zdeněk Kolář, Dalibor Svrčina. Jiří Lehečka and Tomáš Macháč were up against a pair consisting of Daniel Cukierman and the playing captain of the Israeli team, Jonatan Erlich.

The Czechs had a better start to the match, leading 3:0 early on, but lost the opening set twice and lost 4:6. The following set was also a failure. The opponents again won two breaks, the second one determining the final score 3::6 for the Czechs.

Thus, the Israelis adjusted the score of the Davis Cup match, played in the second largest city of the Jewish state, to 1::2. Then followed a singles match in which Jiri Lehecka played against the outsider Edan Leshem, the 444th player in the world.

However, the 63rd ATP ranked tennis player did not confirm his role as the favourite in the first set. The 20-year-old Czech player lost his serve at 2:2 and lost 4:6. He made up for it in the follow-up game, in which he gave his rival his second “canary” in two days. On Friday, the young Czech also won 6:0 in the opening set against Cukierman.

The deciding set was even, but there was no shortened game. Lehečka used the first match point and set the result of the set at 7::5. Thanks to this, the national team was able to enjoy the third point and the barrage victory over the home country Israel.

Captain Navrátil’s team will play the qualifying round again next year to qualify for the final tournament. This year’s tournament has final group matches on the schedule this weekend, hosted by four European cities. the knockout stages of the event, called the Davis Cup Finals 2022, will take place in Málaga, Spain, in November.

Source: Davis Cup, CT Sport, Livesport