Stefanos Tsitsipas was outplayed by an incredible Jiri Lehecka to lose in the fourth round of the 2024 Indian Wells Open.
The Greek player is having a really weird year. He exited the Top 10 for the first time in five years, and while he managed to play well at some events, he's yet to put together one full solid tournament.
The same proved to be true at the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Indian Wells, as he had a good start, but once again ran into an opponent that was just better than him.
The 22-year-old Lehecka is one of the up-and-coming players on the ATP Tour, and he showed why in this match. One thing Tsitsipas has to get used to is facing higher-seeded players earlier, as he's not among the top seeds anymore, and his quarter-final opponent here would have been the winner of the match between Jannik Sinner and Ben Shelton.
However, seeding of his opponent was certainly not to blame in this round-of-16 match, as Lehecka was the lowest ranked among the seeded players as the 32nd seed.
That certainly didn't correspond to his level in this match, as he was much better than his opponent, winning the opening set after losing only four points on his serve and breaking the Greek player twice to win the first set 6-2.
In the second set, the Czech player had to save some break points, but he succeeded every single time he had to do that, and since Tsitsipas wasn't able to do the same, he didn't have a chance to win his match.
Lehecka simply outplayed him when it mattered and won the match 6-2, 6-4, reaching the quarterfinals of the 2024 Indian Wells Open, taking on the winner of the blockbuster between Sinner and Shelton next.
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