One of the breakthrough stars of the early a part of the season has been Jiri Lehecka. The 2022 Next Gen ATP Finals runner-up made a huge impact Down Under when he battled to the quarter-finals of the Australian Open with wins over stars together with Borna Coric, Cameron Norrie and Felix Auger-Aliassime.
How has he stepped up towards top-tier competitors? Power. Lots of energy.
According to statistics courtesy of Tennis Data Innovations and TennisViz, the Czech star already has one of many largest forehands on the planet. Over the previous 52 weeks, Lehecka’s common forehand pace has been 79.2 miles per hour with a median spin price of two,992 revolutions per minute. That is a frightening mixture of pace and spin.
It places Lehecka in the identical neighbourhood as famend ball-bashers Felix Auger-Aliassime (78.4mph and three,178rpm), Andrey Rublev (78.2mph and a couple of,917rpm) and Jannik Sinner (77.8mph and a couple of,901rpm). The ATP Tour common for forehand pace and spin are 75.1 miles per hour and a couple of,713 revolutions per minute, respectively.
Chart courtesy of Tennis Data Innovations and TennisViz, a three way partnership between the ATP and ATP Media.
Tennis Data Innovations and TennisViz additionally produces a metric known as ’Shot Quality’, which analyses every shot’s pace, spin, depth, width and the influence it has on the opponent. Lehecka’s 52-week common on the forehand aspect is 8, and it has improved to eight.3 over his previous 10 matches.
Over the previous yr, his Shot Quality mark has been in the identical vary as Auger-Aliassime (8.1), Rublev (7.9) and Sinner (7.9). The Tour common is 7.2.
“When I met Jiri first time, he shocked me with the humility. He was such a pleasant particular person,” Lehecka’s coach, Michal Navratil, advised ATPTour.com. “And then after all it was instantly the power and the ability of his photographs that have been in him.”
What is scarier for the remainder of the Tour is that the 21-year-old Lehecka remains to be harnessing his energy, in keeping with his coach. When they first started working collectively, Lehecka used a special racquet model and his string stress was 24/23 kilograms.
[ATP APP]
Lehecka has since experimented with completely different racquet and string setups to assist management his recreation.
“He had an enormous issues with the string,” Navratil mentioned. “He was in a position to destroy the string in 10, quarter-hour. [It was] not even for the primary ball change, so it was large.”
The Czech has had his racquets strung more and more tighter, serving to to rein in his recreation.
“It’s humorous. Last yr was one thing extraordinarily particular,” Navratil mentioned. “He was stringing final yr in Australia 35/33. So at first he was actually like a beast with a lot energy. But lastly he manages how one can management it and every part. Still I feel he can’t play on full proportion of his energy as a result of I feel on this world there are usually not racquets he can go for full and he can management it.”
That has paid dividends in his fast climb up the Pepperstone ATP Rankings. It was a yr in the past when he reached the Rotterdam semi-finals as a qualifier ranked No. 137. Now Lehecka, armed by one of many largest forehands on the planet, is No. 52 and climbing (career-high No. 37).
Lehecka begins his run on the Qatar ExxonMobil Open on Tuesday in Doha towards qualifier Damir Dzumhur.
Source: www.atptour.com