It is easy to see why Jiri Vesely had high emotions after pulling off one of the biggest upsets in recent history at the Dubai Tennis Championships on Thursday.
The Czech qualifier produced some of his best tennis to knock top seed Novak Djokovic out of the tournament in straight sets. Vesely’s win was only the fourth time in his career he has defeated a top 10 player and his first since beating Alexander Zverev at the 2019 Wimbledon Championships. It is the first time he has reached the last four of an ATP event in over 12 months following what has been a difficult period in his career.
Towards the end of February last year Vesely tested positive for COVID-19 along with many others at the time. Initially his symptoms were mild and he assumed his recovery would be swift. However, that didn’t turn out to be the case.
“Once I started to practice, it was really, really hard to breathe, for me to work, to be able to practice for one hour, two hours. I had these struggles for maybe two months, three months.” He said following his win over Djokovic.
“It makes you really frustrated, depressed sometimes because you don’t really know what to do. I was making all the health checks, talking to many, many doctors. Nobody really knew how long this (recovery) could take.’
“Once you don’t practice enough, once you don’t play enough, once you don’t win matches, it’s all coming together. Then after three months, I finally found more energy to work harder again.”
Vesely continued playing on the Tour whilst he recovered but failed to produce the results he wanted. Following his positive test, he lost in the first round of his next four tournaments and didn’t win back-to-back matches at the same event until September when he played a Challenger tournament in Austria.
However, part of the delay to his recovery wasn’t just due to illness. After getting his fitness back to where he wanted, Vesely then hurt his neck in a car accident back in his home country when a vehicle he was travelling in hit a tree.
“Luckily it wasn’t anything bad. It was just a reaction after the car crashed against the tree,” he said. “I had some problems with my neck. But it wasn’t anything serious.
“We all are very lucky and very happy for that.“
Growing up Vesely was tipped as one of the future stars of the sport following a successful junior career where he won the Australian Open boys’ title and reached the top of the rankings. In 2013 he broke into the top 100 at the age of 19 and ended the season as the youngest player in the top 100. He has been ranked as high as 35th and has two Tour titles to his name.
“It’s great to be successful at an early age at some point. But also I think you have to be prepared for it. I think I wasn’t really prepared for that,” Vesely reflects.
“Suddenly people started to follow me, sponsors, managers. Everybody was looking after me and how I will do. I think I haven’t been able to make the next step just to establish in the top 30, maybe top 20. I was No.35 at the age of 21, then something just broke down a little bit. I started to fight more with myself than with the opponent.”
Now with a second win over Djokovic under his belt after the 2016 Monte Carlo Masters, a wiser Vesely hope this year could be the year where he finally breaks through.
“I have much more experience. I know how to play against the good guys. I’m still at a good age and I think I can do good things. Hopefully I can find a way this year to really make the breakthrough and go out there.” He concludes.
