Jiri Vesely found his lost form. He scored a valuable scalp at the tournament in Dubai

Jiri Vesely’s journey at the ATP 500 in Dubai is far from over. He has now followed up his successful qualification with a very good performance in the first round of the main phase, beating a top 50 player.

The 28-year-old Czech took on the experienced Croatian Marin Cilic. The former world number three and currently the 24th player in the ATP rankings couldn’t catch Vesely’s pace and after 6::4, 7::6(3) sets he dropped out very unexpectedly.

Veselý did not give his opponent many chances in the match. The native of Pribram broke the first set in the third game when he converted a break point and managed to hold his own serve for the rest of the set – 1::0.

The second set brought more drama. Vesely led until 5::4, but then he was unable to convert three match points on his serve and the Croatian got back into the game for a while. In the tiebreak, however, Vesely gave Cilic no chance and defeated him in a shortened game 7: 3 – 2: 0.

The current 123rd player in the world has a lot to play for, as Veselý would drop again in the ATP rankings if he gains a small number of points from this tournament. The last time he beat a top 30 player was last year in Melbourne, where he succeeded against Norwegian Casper Ruud.

The Czech player will face the winner of the Artur Rinderknech – Roberto Bautista match, who incidentally is the last champion of the ATP tournament in Doha, to advance to the next round in Dubai.

Sources: ATP, Twitter