To be honest I've always just thought of him as a Rublev 2.0. He could definitely achieve similar to what Andrey has but I'd be really surprised if he does anything beyond that

 

I think we should, but not yet. He has to improve in the later stages of Slams first. He lost in easy three sets to Alca at the USO just recently, and even though Alca was on fire for the whole tournament, I expected more from the Czech in their match.

 

An uninspiring and one dimensional player. His best result may be still ahead of him, but I think he's limited at a certain level.

 

Lehecka is one of the best volleyer of under 25 or even under 30 players.

I tend to agree he is limted at a certain level but no doubt your comment is ill informed.

 

The current third in line Czech to pick up where Lendl left off in his prime? NO.

 

Lehecka seems to be one of those players who is going under the radar a little.

He is 23 years old and is currently at a CH of 16. He has a big serve, strikes the ball very cleanly with a lot of pace off both wings and is a decent mover. He has been criticised for being one-dimensional and his game does lack variety, but he has added in more net-rushing this year. He has been held back by injuries in the past, but he has not had any serious injuries this year and so far has managed to play a full season.

He has had a consistently good season: he won a title in Brisbane, reached the final at Queens and made his 2nd career GS final at USO. His W/L is up at about 0.7 on both hard courts and grass. Tennis Abstract had him ranked #10 for hard court ELO at the beginning of the week. He has now picked up his 4th top 10 win of the year against Fritz at Davis Cup - it's worth noting that only 10 other players have 4 or more top 10 wins in 2025.

The slight caveats: The draw did open up for him at the USO. His 4 top 10 wins of the year do include a win by retirement over Dimitrov in Brisbane and a win over a sick Fritz at the Davis Cup.

So, what do people think? What is his ceiling? Could he break the top 10 next year? Could be be a regular in the 2nd week of hard court slams? Is he a potential Masters winner?

I think he could definitely break into the top ten one day.

 

I had big expectations, he will have a solid career. I can see him for example in AO QF again.
But when it doesn't go his way, sometimes he still loses sets in 20 minutes, service games in a blink of an eye,
he seem not overly motivated or mentally strong. Still 7 levels away from Sinner/Alcaraz.
He may be at the same level as Shelton or Rune, Hubi or Mensik and may win a Masters 1000 some day,
when Sincaraz are absent.

 

He is a pusher with a decent serve

 

He's better than Mensik. Probably will have the better overall career

 

No one is considering Lehecka.

 

No, we shouldn't.
Not only does the guy play a one-dimensional, boring game, but he also has an annoying Swiatek-like face, the mentality of a loser, and the personality of a jellyfish. Seeing his name in the Slams' second week draws is truly sickening; you'd rather see a bye instead

 

Probably not.

Great serve when on. But outside of that, meh. I don't see him pushing sinner or alcaraz at the slams. Masters maybe, very sporadically, when everything clicks. But that'll be pretty rare.

 

To be honest I've always just thought of him as a Rublev 2.0. He could definitely achieve similar to what Andrey has but I'd be really surprised if he does anything beyond that

I had big expectations, he will have a solid career. I can see him for example in AO QF again... Still 7 levels away from Sinner/Alcaraz. He may be at the same level as Shelton or Rune, Hubi or Mensik and may win a Masters 1000 some day,
when Sincaraz are absent.

... Great serve when on. But outside of that, meh. I don't see him pushing sinner or alcaraz at the slams. Masters maybe, very sporadically, when everything clicks. But that'll be pretty rare.

I tend to agree with all of these comments.
Lehecka is very obviously not going to morph into being the mythical 3rd head of a hell-hound guarding the gates against all comers with Sinner and Alcaraz. I'm not at all sure there is going to be a 3rd head to the beast, but that's another discussion.

I was thinking more about Lehecka's chances of breaking into the top 10, making QFs at slams on hard courts on a fairly regular basis and maybe picking up a hard court Masters title. We've had a fairly stable top 10 over recent years until this year; only 1 new player broke into the top 10 in 2023 (Tiafoe briefly) and 1 in 2024 (de Minaur). It's been much more turbulent this year; we've had 4 new players breaking into the top 10 (Paul, Draper, Musetti and Shelton), while a number of players have slipped out and there are question marks to a greater or lesser extent over whether they will make a successful return (Medvedev, Rublev, Tsitsipas, Ruud, Dimitrov and Rune).

I'm quite interested to see which players make up the top 10 over the next few years apart from Sinner and Alcaraz. Djokovic will surely retire at some point, although only he knows when. I think Zverev, Fritz and Shelton will stick around, and Draper too if he is healthy. I'm much less sure who else will be in there and whether they will stay in as consistent members or whether there will be a state of flux with players moving in and out more often than we've become used to. Instability and upsets are sometimes fun, but I'm personally hoping we'll get a little more consistency and better gate-keeping than we've had this year.

Anyway, I digress. Apart from Sinner, Alcaraz, Shelton and Draper, I think Lehecka might be the most likely player in the 22-24 year old age bracket to be a top 10 regular over the next few years. If we were drafting a sports team of players in this age group and looking purely at reliability and results (rather than exciting gamestyle or beautiful shotmaking or other aspects), I'd personally pick Lehecka over Rune or Musetti. If not him, maybe Cobolli.

 

I think he will break the Top10 when the lost generation / the 1990s generation have retired (Zverev, Fritz, De Minaur, Khachanov, Ruud, etc.)

in the <24 ranking he is actually #6 after alcaraz, shelton, draper, musetti, and rune.

 

I have him as a lesser Berdych. Should get to the Top 10 at some point, but not expecting Top 5.

 

Nah, not as long as his main goal seems to be a skinny ripped dude.