Jiri Lehecka’s experience carried him to a second career Masters 1000 semifinal on Wednesday, the 24-year-old Czech dispatching Spanish qualifier Martin Landaluce, 7-6 (1), 7-5 at the Miami Open.
“I knew what to expect,” Lehecka told Prakash Amritraj in his visit to the Cadillac Tennis Channel Desk. “I knew he was going to play well and I knew that the level will be there. I did everything I could to stay in the match and work my way through the difficult situations.”
Those two difficult situations came at the end of each set, with Landaluce forcing a tiebreaker in the first and battling from the brink of defeat in the second before Lehecka was ultimately able to steel past his 20-year-old rival.
“These were the crucial moments where I feel I showed that I’m a little bit more experienced and I also did some good shotmaking there.
“The thing I saw about him was he really was the one who was winning the points. He went for it, he was very aggressive. It wasn’t just that some of the guys didn’t feel good or had a bad day. He was the one who really punished them and was aggressive going into it.”
