The semi finals are currently underway in the Madrid Open and it has been one of the most exciting tournaments with some surprising turn of events lately. There have been some big exits and surprising returns that has kept us on our feet through the intense clay season. It was great to see the likes of Andrey Rublev finally make a comeback after four consecutive losses and beating world number 3 and defending champion Carlos Alcaraz in the finals and Jiri Lehecka making it into the final four with some surprising victories over big tennis players.
Speaking of Lehecka he was set to feature in the second semi final game vs young and upcoming Canadian player Felix Auger Aliassime who had also beaten top 10 ranked players in Casper Ruud in his road to the semi finals as well. Both these young players will also be on the road to reach their first ever Madrid Open finals. The journey of these two young sensations have been absolutely phenomenal as they are one of the surprise packages of the tournament and have a lot of skill and talent to even achieve bigger things in the game.
A sad ending to a semi final game
It was already heartbreaking to see Jannik Sinner withdraw from the quarter final match due to a hip injury to give Felix Auger Alliasime a walkthrough. It is always disappointing for both players who were looking forward to playing a great game of tennis. We all were looking forward to the two youngsters battling it out for a spot in the finals, but all it took was a terrible cramp to Lehecka durin the first set where both the players were even at 3-3. Lehecka was trying to fight through the pain but in the end was unable to recover and play which resulted in Felix winning his second consecutive playoff game by a walkover. This was not a great site to see at all.
This was one of these matches where you can only feel bad for Lehecka who was having a great run in this season beating some great and high ranking players to reach this point. It also might not be a great state of affairs for Felix who would still be glad to play the finals, but will also feel he missed out on two great games in Tennis. This has really ended up being a sad state of affairs for a competitive semi final game in ATP Masters 1000 which was disappointing for all the fans and the players who had worked hard to get to this position in the tournament.