Jiri Lehecka avenged his defeat to Valentin Vacherot at last year’s Paris Masters on Monday, October 5, beating the Monegasque 6-4, 6-2 in the semi-finals of the ATP 500 Japan Open at the Ariake Coliseum.

Lehecka took the opening set and never let Vacherot back into the match, reports say. The Czech extends his winning streak and will meet Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz, the defending Tokyo champion, in the final. Vacherot had won their only previous meeting 6-1, 6-3 in the first round in Paris last October.

The seeded eighth in Tokyo, Vacherot reached his third ATP Tour semi-final the hard way. He opened with a 7-6, 7-6 win over Belgium’s Alexander Blockx, then came back from a set down to beat former world number three Stefanos Tsitsipas 4-6, 7-6, 6-4.

His best moment came on Sunday, October 4, when he edged France’s Arthur Fils 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 in more than two hours, after trailing by a break in both the first and third sets. The ATP Tour said he hit 14 aces in the match, including three in the final game.

“Maybe he should have won the first or the third set, but I won both of them. That’s tennis, that’s its whole beauty,” Vacherot said afterwards, as quoted by We Love Tennis.

The run was a welcome recovery after a poor start to the Asian swing. As top seed in Chengdu, Vacherot was knocked out in his opening match by world number 136 Lloyd Harris, 6-4, 7-6, according to Puntodebreak.

There is little time to dwell on the defeat, as attention now turns to the defence of his Shanghai Masters crown. The tournament runs from October 7 to 18, and Vacherot arrives as the defending champion after one of the most remarkable runs in recent tennis history.

Ranked 204th in the world a year ago, he came through qualifying, beat Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals and then his cousin Arthur Rinderknech in the final. He became the first Monegasque to win an ATP Tour singles title and the lowest-ranked Masters 1000 champion since the series began in 1990, Wikipedia says. Rinderknech is also in this year’s field, along with Jannik Sinner, Alcaraz and Djokovic.

There is pressure too, as the ATP Tour notes that the 1,000 points he won in Shanghai last year will come off his ranking during the tournament.