Jiri Lehecka satisfied, but sees ‘big, big room for improvement’ | ATP Tour

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Lehecka satisfied, but sees ‘big, big room for improvement’

Czech is set for new career high following first ATP Masters 1000 final

March 30, 2026

Jiri Lehecka has a lot to be proud of following his surprise run to the final of the Miami Open presented by Itau. The Czech, who fell short to Jannik Sinner in Sunday’s title match, was competing in his maiden ATP Masters 1000 final, an experience that underlined both his progress and his hunger for more.

“I think that these matches like today against these guys are showing me that there is still big, big, big room for improvement,” Lehecka said in his post-tournament press conference. “I played, in my opinion, a very good tournament here. I was very satisfied with my game.

“But today I again saw that there is still somewhere to go, and that I will really need to keep improving more and more if I want to be able to beat these guys in the final stages of these big events like Masters and Grand Slams.”

Set for a new career-high No. 14 in Monday’s PIF ATP Rankings, Lehecka produced a commanding serving performance in Miami, going unbroken until the final. He saved nine break points across three matches and did not face a single break point in his two other matches en route to the championship match. Sinner wasted no time, ending Lehecka’s streak in the Czech’s second service game.

Still, the 24-year-old Lehecka is pleased with his standout serving performance in south Florida.

“The way I was able to keep my key weapons working through all these matches was something that I was working towards in the last couple of weeks, months,” said Lehecka. “Of course I would love to hold my serve the whole year, but that’s not possible. Jannik played very good return games, and I felt during the whole match that he’s putting more and more pressure on me.”

Lehecka fell to 0-4 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with Sinner, but Sunday’s clash was more of a contest than their third-round meeting at Roland Garros last year, when the Italian cruised to a 6-0, 6-1, 6-2 victory. That three-set match in Paris took one hour and 34 minutes, just one minute more than Sinner’s two-set win at Hard Rock Stadium.

“I showed today a better performance than in Paris, so I was focusing on not repeating the same mistake as back then,” Lehecka said. “Which meant using my first serve as a weapon and going a little bit more to the net.

“At last year’s Roland Garros, I felt that these conditions were extremely difficult for my game style. We played under the roof, Court Suzanne-Lenglen, super wet conditions, heavy balls. I felt that he was the one who basically had all the weapons at that moment. I could not help myself with the serve. Every time I played a good shot back then, he just had plenty of time to counter it somehow.”

Lehecka arrived in Miami with a modest 6-5 season record, according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index, and now heads into the European clay-court swing buoyed by his latest performance.

“I made a final here, so I think that even the work on Monte-Carlo clay will be easier for me with that confidence that I bring with myself,” said Lehecka. “And at the same time, there is no better place to start the year on clay than Monte-Carlo. That place is amazing and I like to be there all the time when I can.”