Jiri Lehecka defeated Brandon Nakashima and Andrey Rublev in the second and third rounds of the 2024 Indian Wells respectively. He now stands a terrific chance to reach the quarterfinals of the ATP 1000 Masters event if he goes past Stefanos Tsitsipas. Lehecka’s rise in the ATP circuit sort of went under the radar. But the Czech tennis player did exceptionally well last year, to be in this stage today.
Lehecka is in terrific form. He is playing his best tennis against some of the most formidable opponents in recent times. It all started after his 6-4, 6-2 win over Alexander Zverev in the 2023 United Cup. He lost out to Taylor Fritz, but beating a top-rated player like Zverev spoke volumes about his quality.
Wins over Cameron Norrie and Felix Auger-Aliassime at the Australian Open 2023, and over Emil Ruusuvori and Grigor Dimitrov at the Monte Carlo Masters in the same year, were just other signs of his prowess and of things to come.
Rublev, who lost to Lehecka just recently in the third round of the BNP Paribas Open, also lost to him at last year’s Qatar ExxonMobil Open. This makes their head-to-head tally 2-2. Lehecka was growing after every match. He reached the final of the 2023 Winston-Salem Open, losing to Sebastian Baez. As a result of his stellar performance in 2023, Jiri Lehecka started the year at rank 69 and finished it at 29. He gained 40 positions.
His labor finally bore fruit in 2024, when Lehecka won his first ATP Title – 2024 Adelaide International. In the final, he won against Jack Draper, another formidable opponent. The score was 4-6, 6-4, 6-3. Before that, he defeated Sebastian Korda to reach the final.
Given that Lehecka has already won an ATP title this year, and reached the quarterfinals of the Dubai Tennis Championships, he will fancy his chances against Stefanos Tsitsipas in the Round of 16 of Indian Wells. Tsitsipas leads in head-to-head against Lehecka 2-0, and the Greek will take immense confidence from that. But Lehecka looks in fine touch at the moment, and if he can come up with his best game, Lehecka might well enter the quarterfinals.
Today, Jiri Lehecka is ranked 32nd in the ATP rankings. He dropped a few places after he achieved his career-high ranking of 23 in January 2024. The total prize money he won in tennis is $3,054,460 USD, including both singles and doubles careers.
Jiri Lehecka lives in Knezmost in Czechia and his coach is Michal Navratil. At age 22, Lehecka is without a doubt one of the fastest-rising tennis players today. He will become a force to reckon with in the near future.
