Jack Draper Despite defeating his check opponent to book his place in the final of Qatar Open, Jiri was important for his performance against Leheka.
Young British Saturdays will face Andre Rubalav in Dickider and already guaranteed to reach a career-high ATP rankings, whether winning or loses.
Draper is expected to climb 12th position after reaching the finals, while winning the rublev will raise him an additional place in 11th place.
He took some time to go against Leheka, losing the first set before battling 3-6 7-6 6-3.
Talking to Sky Sports after the match, Draper admitted to being ‘scavengers’ in early exchanges, but said he was pleased with the way he fought back to withdraw the control of the competition.
“I thought in the first set I put in a dirty game,” he said. “Jiri comes out with such a firepower. As a previous match, I started gaining an edge on his service and I was a little easier.
“I felt better that the match went away and yes, the way I competed, I am very proud of it.”
Draper feels that there is a habit of winning a draw-out match, earlier this week, Matio came from behind in the quarter-finals to defeat Beretini.
He told that he got confidence by playing five set matches Australian OpenWhen it became difficult against Leheka, helping him dig deep.
“At the end of last year I started taking some real pace, I was playing some good tennis, so I couldn’t play for almost a month,” Draper said.
“My tennis was everywhere in Australia, but it gave me some confidence through five-set matches. Come here, I felt better about my tennis and even better about my body.”
Draper will be hoping to maintain his winning form against rublev, a player he has never beaten before, when he fights in Saturday’s finals.
His last meeting came to the US Open in 2023, when Draper went down in four sets, but he would like to give a better account of himself two years after developing his craft.
“I am definitely a separate player when I last played him,” he said. “He is someone whom I respectfully respect, he has been in the top 10 for many years and he has been going out and playing incredibly well. I am going to be ready for that one.”
