Lehecka triumphed in Adelaide! Czech tennis player wins first career title on the ATP circuit

His biggest success on the ATP circuit so far was the final from Winston-Salem. Jiri Lehecka took credit for that after a poor finish to 2023, advancing to the last match of the tournament in his first tournament of the new season. How did his final match against the British Draper go?

Lehecka in the new season

The native of Czech republic started the new year at the United Cup. Although he didn’t experience the joy of victory at this team event, he did win a set against Djokovic and certainly had a good warm-up for his participation in his first standard tournament event.

And his performance in Australia’s fifth largest city was gathering momentum.

Against Serbian Lajovic he decided his second round match in the third set, but he didn’t lose a set in the following matches. He overcame the favoured American Korda in the semi-final 6: 2, 6: 1.

Before the final match of the tournament he sent his final opponent a very interesting card. This opponent was the British Draper.

The final duel

In the final match two peers faced each other. Jack Draper is less than two months younger than Lehecka and, like the Czech tennis player, has not won a tournament title yet. The Briton is ranked seventh in the rankings. Thirty places below the Czech number one.

And the two finalists were also linked by the story in Adelaide. Draper also had his toughest moments of the tournament in the second round and against a Serbian opponent. He beat Kecmanovic here only in the third set tiebreak. He also turned away two of his opponent’s match points during the match.

The seventh game was very important for the development of the first set of the final. The Briton won Lehecek’s serve without losing a ball. In the ninth game, Lehecka fended off a set point from his opponent, but in the next game he failed to do so.

In the second set, coach Navratil’s ward finally worked his way to a break point. At 2:1 he was very close to using it, but Draper defended. Lehecka got the next chance at the best possible moment. At 5:4 he had three chances and took the second one confidently. He sent the match into a deciding set.

The deciding set

The Czech Davis Cup player entered the third set exactly as he had ended the second. With an early break he jumped out to a 2:0 lead and played almost flawlessly in this phase of the match.

Draper, on the other hand, let his emotions run away with him and was quite far from his performance from the beginning of the match. Lehecka took a big step towards victory with a reversal from 0:40 a few moments later. By then he had worked his way to a 4:1 lead.

At 5:3, Lehecka got two match points on his serve. The first one failed after a long exchange, but the Czech player converted the second one and won his first ATP title in his career.

In the end ..

The first part of the season worked well for Lehecek last year. Let’s hope he will follow up his Adelaide performance at the Australian Open. The Czech fan was also pleased with two successful Czech representatives in the qualification for the opening Grand Slam of the season. We are only hours away from the start of the tournament.

Source: ATP