In the third round of the BNP Paribas Open on Wednesday, Jiri Lehecka defeated Arthur Rinderknech in a hard-fought match to claim his maiden ATP Masters 1000 victory. The 21-year-old Czech, who had qualified for Monte Carlo the previous season, won 7-6(4), 7-5 in his second appearance at the illustrious level.
Lehecka twice overcame a break down against Rinderknech in the first set before holding serve to avoid two set points at 5-6. Although his French opponent tied the second set at 4-4, he never trailed in the tie-break and jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in the second. On his seventh break point, Lehecka broke for the fourth time in the match to secure the victory.
His second round will be against sixth seed Andrey Rublev, the third ATP Head2Head meeting between the two. Both of their previous matches went to three sets, with Rublev prevailing in Belgrade in April of last year and Lehecka doing the same in Doha last month.