British number one Jack Draper produced another gutsy display to down Jiri Lehecka in three sets at the Qatar Open and reach the fifth ATP Tour final of his career. Lehecka had stunned Carlos Alcaraz in the quarter-finals in Doha and looked on course to claim another scalp when he won the first set.
Draper required a tie-break to get the match back on level terms before he showed his class in the decider to take victory by a 3-6 7-6 (2) 6-3 score. Both Lehecka and Draper had spent more than two hours on court for their last-eight triumphs, but it failed to prevent a high-quality start to their semi-final showdown.
A number of lusty blows were mixed in with touches of finesse with one particular Draper drop shot in the sixth game able to get the crowd off their feet. Former Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger was among those in attendance, but it failed to bring any initial luck for London-born Draper as Lehecka struck with his only break point of the first set to move in front.
Draper impressively kept his composure and after a nip-and-tuck second set, he went clutch in the tie-break to force a decider in Doha. This was Draper’s first tournament since he retired from the Australian Open with a hip issue, but he repeatedly showed his supreme physical ability to outlast Lehecka in several rallies to take control of the third set.
A first break was swiftly followed by a second as Draper edged out his Czech opponent in two hours and 23 minutes to set up a final clash against fifth seed Andrey Rublev on Saturday. World number 16 Draper has claimed eight victories from nine matches in 2025, with three of them five-set wins at the Australian Open to highlight his improved resilience.
“End of last year, I started to pick up some real momentum and was playing good tennis. I was building it and then – all of a sudden – I couldn’t play for about a month,” Draper said on-court, with reference to a recent hip injury. “I went out to Australia and my level was all over the place, but it gave me a lot of confidence coming through those five-set matches. You know mentally I think that was really good for me even though my tennis wasn’t there.
“When I came back it was about getting the tennis right, getting my body in the right place and building on that fitness I had done in Melbourne. Coming here, yeah I felt better about my tennis and even better about my body.”. Rublev has triumphed in all three of his meetings with Draper and booked his place in the final with a 7-5 4-6 7-6 (5) win over Felix Auger-Aliassime.
