Czechs are one step away from winning the Davis Cup barrage, Lehecka and Machac won their matches in Israel on Friday

On Friday afternoon, the Czech tennis players played their first two Davis Cup barrage matches in Israel. The team of captain Jaroslav Navrátil is the favourite, which, according to the paper assumptions, should defend its membership in the world group. The duel continues on Saturday.

The Czechs will have to do without Jiri Vesely on the hard surface in Tel Aviv, and Vít Kopřiva is also not in the nomination. The Israelis are without their number one, Yishai Oliel, who seems to be plagued by health problems.

The barrage clash started with a match between the 63rd player of the ATP ranking Jiri Lehecka and the number 450 tennis player in the world Daniel Cukierman. In an hour and a half it was done, the 20-year-old member of the elite singles 100 won after sets 6::0 and 6::4.

A more evenly matched match was offered by Tomas Machac, ranked 109, and Edan Leshem.

The native of Beroun, who is a year older than Lehečka, took advantage of a lost serve of the 444th player in the world ranking, which came at 3::3. The opening set ended 6::4.

In the second set, the Israeli player had six chances to break, but did not take advantage of any of them. On the other hand, Macháč did not waste his first break point in the set when the score was 5:5 and he calmly finished the match.

On Saturday at 11:00 a.m. the doubles match will start with Zdeněk Kolář and Dalibor Svrčina. Daniel Cukierman and playing captain Jonatan Erlich are expected to play for the Israeli team. If the doubles team does not add a decisive third point, the singles will continue.

Source: Davis Cup, ATP, Czech Television