Jiri Lehecka was only a game away from delivering a deadly blow to Australia, but he failed to see it through as Alex de Minaur secured a chance for Australia to still pull through into the semi-finals.
It's been a rather shocking start to the Davis Cup Final Eight showdown, as we almost lost both of last year's finalists. Finland upset last year's champion, Canada yesterday, and last year's runner-up Australia almost followed them.
The country lost the first match, meaning that de Minaur had to win this one in order to give their doubles specialist a chance to pull them out of the abyss. It was a strange match because, in some ways, Lehecka winning wouldn't have been that shocking.
He can be a really tricky player who is used to playing indoors. He has a powerful and precise serve and can hit the ball really well from the baseline.
He's far more concrete than de Minaur in that regard when it comes to indoor tennis. There is a certain dose of suspicion around de Minaur's consistency, and it's warranted.
He brought some of that heat to the matchup, but it helped that de Minaur didn't really play his finest match. He's a player who can be tough to beat due to his speed but can also be somewhat vulnerable indoors.
He has a 58-35 record indoors, which is very good but not elite. He failed to match Lehecka for a good portion of the match as the Czech player took the opening set 6-4 and served for the match at 5-4 in the second set.
He got broken at the worst possible time but it loomed for a while as he was 8/8 on break points saved until then. De Minaur would eventually outplay his opponent in the tiebreak to force a decider and he did really well in that one.
He took an early break but then dropped it, only to break once more late to win the match. A complicated win for de Minaur but a deserved one, as the tie will be decided in the last doubles match.
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