By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
One of the great first week outer court matches at the 2024 US Open was between American Mitchell Krueger and Czech Jiri Lehecka. This second round match was played during the heat of the mid-day on the intimate Court 5 with temperatures in the mid 90s.
It was probably the biggest match in the career of Krueger, who had never advanced into a third round at a major tournament and had only played in a second round once previously at a major (at the 2020 U.S. Open). The 30-year-old from Dallas, with a ranking of No. 179, had advanced into the main draw after winning three matches in the qualifying tournament last week. He defeated fellow qualifier Hugo Grenier of France 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 in the first round.
Lehecka, the No. 32 seed, was playing only his second tournament since April, recovering from a back injury and eager to regain form that brought him to a career-high ranking of No. 23 and a quarterfinal finish at the 2023 Australian Open.
Krueger took early command of the match by winning a 7-5 first-set tiebreaker and rolled though Lehecka over the next nine games. Krueger won the second set 6-0 and led 3-0 in the third as Lehecka seemed to struggle in the heat. However, the Czech found a second wind and rode the wave of his 130-plus mile per hour serve to persist and win in five sets 6-7(5), 0-6, 6-4, 6-4, 7-5.
Despite the disappointing loss, Krueger will leave the U.S. Open with his biggest career paycheck of $140,000 and 50 ATP ranking points that will move him to a new career high ranking around 150.
The following is a fascinating conversation with Krueger that followed the loss where the significance of the match in the life of Krueger was discussed, as well as the importance of the Challenger and Futures level events are for American tennis and U.S. tennis players and how he tried to handled the intense heat of the day.
Speaker 1: What did that feel like four hours in front of that crowd?
Mitchell Krueger: Yeah, It was obviously an unbelievable atmosphere, especially the last set in particular. It was extremely disappointing, obviously with the result, but I left it all out there, gave everything I had, so I can’t really hang my head on much.
Speaker 3: So I was just figuring how many players during the US Open are going to say that they won four matches, probably only a dozen. So you won four matches, and 140 grand, that’s probably your biggest payday.
Mitchell Krueger: It is, yeah.
Speaker 3: And just how does that feel? And you’re going to have a career-high ranking the next time. So despite the disappointment, when you look at all of that, how does that make you feel?
Mitchell Krueger: Yeah, there’s no doubt about it that there’s way more positive to take from the last week and a half than any negatives at all. You just hit the nail on the head with all three of those. I think I was talking to someone a couple of days ago, this is why we play the sport is to be in these situations and these tournaments, those kinds of matches and those atmospheres. So it just makes me hungry to get back and hopefully be on the opposite side of that result. But like I said, can’t be too disappointed because I put it all out there. I gave everything I had.
Speaker 1: Is it a cliche to say all the matches you played on the challenger, you’ve been a warrior battling in front of dozens of people, maybe 100 people. Is it a cliche to say that moments like today are why you put yourself through that?
Mitchell Krueger: Oh absolutely. Grand Slams are the pinnacle of the sport. Obviously they only come around four times a year and this one being the only American one, it’s extra special for me. And I feel like even through qualifying this year, the support has been unbelievable. It feels like every match just got better and better and I definitely used them today to get me through the end of that match. Even though most of the qualifying matches were not the hardest, not the longest, it’s still wear and tear and it takes a toll at the end. And I was definitely using them to my advantage as best I could and they got me through that fifth set and put me in a position to one point away from breaking to serve for it. So yeah-
Speaker 1: The heat. You’re from Texas, you know about heat. Is that bad today?
Mitchell Krueger: It was worse than it’s been for sure up to this point, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Obviously like you said, Dallas has been ridiculously brutal. It’s been over 100 degrees almost every day.
Speaker 1: Growing up, you must’ve played a lot of that.
Mitchell Krueger: Yeah. But I don’t play three out of five sets every day when I’m home, that’s for sure. So that’s a whole other animal.
Speaker 3: Have you ever played six sets in a day where there’s been two, three setters, rain delay in a challenger or something?
Mitchell Krueger: Probably not since juniors actually.
Speaker 3: Two matches.
Mitchell Krueger: Maybe I have, but none of them come to mind. That doesn’t happen often that they double up. So it was a good, even though I lost that match, it’s kind of like I feel like I can prove to myself that I can last through the five sets because it was my first five setter. So I feel about as good as I could probably feel after playing four hours out there right now. I actually don’t feel nearly as bad as I thought I might.
Speaker 3: You’re going to be 31 in January and you’re playing a lot of challengers and qualies. Like you said, that’s why you play, to have the opportunity to play those matches. You were on ESPN, you had John McEnroe commentating on your match, if you knew that, but that’s why you play, right?
Mitchell Krueger: Yeah, exactly. I’ve always been, even though I’ve played mostly on the challengers the last however many years, I’ve always tried to play as many levels up as I can, as many tournaments, obviously the slams are a given. And I’ve always felt that I bring my best level at those tournaments, so I have no doubt that I belong at this level. It’s just extremely hard to break through to that level.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I know that you were commenting on the challengers and how the USTA player development budget was going to be shrunk and that you commented on Andy’s tweet and you said, “What’s lost on this is that there’s going to be less money for challengers.”
Mitchell Krueger: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Can you elaborate a little more on that? Because I just looked at your activity the last couple of years, you play probably 80%, 90% of your matches in United States.
Mitchell Krueger: Yeah. And it’s even worse for the futures I think for next year because they’re cutting, budget cuts are never a good thing for the players. We all understand money has to be made and money has to be dispersed somewhere. So I’m not faulting anyone for making budget cuts, but I think that there’s definitely some repercussions that I don’t think will be realized for years down the line because, okay, I’m obviously 30 years old, so who knows how many more years I have left.
But for the guys that are coming out of college, top juniors that are playing, they’re going to have less opportunities, fewer tournaments at home where traditionally it’s easier to play, being American. So that’s kind of what I’m concerned about is how it affects the next generation. But yeah, I think up to this point in the year, I feel like they’ve done about as good of a job as they can with the calendar of trying to provide tournaments. I think there’s been a few private tournaments that have popped up that have kind of filled some empty weeks. But yeah, I guess my goal is for next year to hopefully keep pushing and keep building on these last few weeks and this whole year for me honestly, and get out of the challengers as much as I can.
Speaker 3: So you won three challengers this year in the United States and got to the finals on another one and then that helped buoy you to being basically minus four 130 mile per hour serves into the third round of the U.S Open.
Mitchell Krueger: Yeah. If you put it that way, absolutely. I traveled to Europe a couple of times earlier this year for some challengers and some tour events, but the last several years before that, I had only really traveled outside the country or outside of the continent for the Slams and tournaments around the Slams. So this year I kind of knew going into it that it was going to, if I really wanted to make a strong push this year that I would have to put myself in a little bit of an uncomfortable or out of my comfort zone a little bit and take some risks, go to some tournaments that I otherwise wouldn’t play, and otherwise I’d be just sitting at home training for a couple weeks and it’s never a bad thing, but I try to manage my tournament schedule as best I can. And as long as I’m feeling healthy, which this year has been really healthy for me, I want to keep playing because the more you play, the better you can do, the more money you can make, points and rankings and everything improves.
Speaker 3: But is that financially also, just that it’s easier for you to go to Tyler, Texas and other places in the USA?
Mitchell Krueger: Absolutely, especially these days. Flights are so expensive. Just living is so expensive. So I feel like that’s always been one of the big benefits of having the USTA Pro Circuit of having the better part of 20, I don’t even know how it is, 20-something challengers or close to it a year spread throughout the year where you can play basically the entire year outside of the Slams if that’s what you decide in the states or maybe a couple times in Canada or Mexico where it’s an easy flight. And not saying it’s necessarily the best thing. Sometimes it is a good thing to go other countries see different players, different conditions, but I think as far as ease and especially for guys coming up, it’s way easier to do that from home from the same country.
Speaker 1: What does logistically $140,000 check mean for you in terms of being able to keep… We talk about players not having the means to keep going in a sport and a good week at a Grand Slam can keep them going. Tell me. I don’t think people understand what does that mean for you? Is a better hotels, is it better coaching? What does $140,000 going to do for you?
Mitchell Krueger: It’s not better hotels because the Challengers provide hotels now, so that’s actually a relief there that you save money there. But it’s just peace of mind knowing that you don’t have to, not that I was, but you don’t have to live month to month where your expenses are outweighing what you’re making with this big boost that I’m going to get. And after this tournament’s over, that’s-
Speaker 1: Does that enable you to do different, coaching or travel more?
Mitchell Krueger: Yeah, definitely. It just takes the pressure off. Anyone can say they don’t feel the pressure financially, and there’s levels to that I would say, but I think it affects everybody. At the end of the day, if you’re seeing more money coming out and coming in, it’s never an easy thing to go out there and play at a high level and not think about it. Especially in my case, I’m married, I have a 15-month-old baby.
Speaker 3: Congratulations.
Mitchell Krueger: We actually just bought a new house.
Speaker 3: Congratulations.
Mitchell Krueger: Our parents moved us in this past week, so we haven’t even been there.
Speaker 3: That’s awesome.
Mitchell Krueger: My wife’s been joking with me every round here that there’s some new furniture being added, some new renovations being done that weren’t otherwise going to be done.
Speaker 3: She’s already spending the paycheck, right?
Mitchell Krueger: No, we had just been talking about that, but that’s another because-
Speaker 3: Quality of life.
Mitchell Krueger: Family growing, we’ve kind of outgrew our house we are in currently and having to make life decisions, which can be forgotten about when you’re playing tennis all the time. At the end of the day, we still have the same life that everyone else has. I have to afford living and all that. So that definitely is a big relief I think for me. I don’t have to worry about that so much.
Speaker 3: Are you familiar also with what’s going on in Italy where they have basically a challenger every week?
Mitchell Krueger: Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3: And what do you think about that and do other players on the challenger circuit talk about that?
Mitchell Krueger: I think it speaks for itself when you look at the number of young Italian guys that are in the top 200, maybe even 150 or top 100, there’s a bunch of them. I think it started all around COVID, 2020 when that started. They’ve always had a ton of futures, I don’t even know the number. Easily probably 30 a year. And then they went through a period where there was, every week there’s challengers or there’s multiple stretches throughout the year where there’s six, seven, eight weeks straight and then you’re not even counting the tour events that they have. And a bunch of Italian cities filled in for random spots when COVID was still, the restrictions were still around to kind of fill spots in the calendar and they have a Masters. And then you forget that Italy is still in Europe, which for us, that’d be like having 40 tournaments a year in Texas, or not even, way smaller than Texas, and then being able to travel to Florida or wherever, any given week for two or three other tournaments.
So I think it’s just, I honestly think the numbers speak for themselves. That to me is the clearest example of doing it right, building up young players in the young generation, which is exactly what I was talking about with getting rid of tournaments. Because I feel like that at the end of the day, you want as many Americans in the main draws of these tournaments and that comes most of the time through being top 100. You can qualify, but it’s not easy to qualify. You’d rather have them directly in and I think that that’s, every one of these American players here got there through the USTA Pro Circuit. It speaks for itself.
Speaker 1: You and Ash Krueger both from Dallas, not related?
Mitchell Krueger: I got it clear the air, we’re actually not related.
Speaker 1: Okay. Because conflicting evidence. That’s kind of crazy, you’re both from Dallas.
Mitchell Krueger: I know. We joke-
Speaker 1: Your last name is Krueger and you’re not related.
Mitchell Krueger: We joke with each other all the time. Similar build.
Speaker 1: No third cousins or nothing?
Mitchell Krueger: No, no. We actually had the same coach in Dallas too.
Speaker 1: Oh, did you?
Mitchell Krueger: For a while.
Speaker 1: That’s wild.
Speaker 1: We don’t want to hog from the AP. AP has a question.
Speaker 3: No, go ahead.
Speaker 4: Could I ask you a question? I’m a local guy, Newsday. Could you talk a bit just about playing four hours, 90 degrees heat, brutal conditions?
Mitchell Krueger: Yeah, I was saying a little earlier that I actually feel better than I thought I was going to feel because after my first round I was really struggling. I managed to get through the fourth set in my first round, but I was two hours in the locker room after the match where I couldn’t stand up because I felt like if I stood up the wrong way I was going to start full body cramping. So I actually didn’t even practice yesterday. I just took it as a recovery day. I’m from Dallas, so the heat to me is not a new thing, but it doesn’t matter how many times you practice in it, playing competitive matches, in this case four hours, five sets, is never an easy thing. But I think the crowd definitely boosted my adrenaline at some key moments, especially in the fifth set, really pushed me to give it everything I had. I left it all out there.
Speaker 4: I noticed multiple shirt changes. That’ll only take you so far. What other sort of tactics do you use?
Mitchell Krueger: Yeah, I like to think of myself as a pretty heavy sweater. So today I actually didn’t have to change that much. I only changed after each set. Did a shoe and sock change after the second set and shorts and that kind of got me through the end. But I think the heat break that we actually got after the third set kind of helped.
Speaker 4: Do you try to shorten points at all or you just take it as it comes?
Mitchell Krueger: Yeah, I think definitely periods of the third set and a lot of the fourth set, I was trying to shorten the points as best I could because obviously you don’t want to think down the road. I was up two sets so you know you have the flexibility to go five if you need to, but you don’t want to. So I was just trying to make sure that I didn’t kind of burn myself out before the finish line, which-
Speaker 5: He was struggling too. Yeah.
Mitchell Krueger: Yeah. This is the hottest day of the tournament since I’ve been here through qualies and last week was unbelievable. It was mid-seventies every day. It looks like tomorrow it’s going to go back down that way. So I feel like we were a little unlucky there. But I take it as a lot of positives that it’s my first five-set match. So the fact that I was able to get through it and feel pretty much good, especially at the end, it kind of shows me that I’m on the right path and doing enough off the court and away from tournaments to compete at this level.
Speaker 4: Is there anything you do differently before heading out on court when the conditions are this hot?
Mitchell Krueger: I don’t know if it’s necessarily different. Honestly, I’m still learning playing three out of five, as to how much do I need to eat compared to two out of three because you just know these matches could last anywhere from two to five-plus hours. You look at the match yesterday. So that’s a tricky thing for me. Being first on at 11 I feel like is a tricky time also because you have to allow enough time to get here in the morning from the city. So I’m having breakfast at 7:15 and then warming up probably a little earlier than I would normally at nine.
So I give myself an hour and a half before the match, pretty much an hour to try to eat something. But you can’t eat heavy and then go out, especially in these conditions, to go and play five sets. But yeah, the key I think is obviously hydrating the day before or two days before, just as much as you can. And then while you’re on court just trying to take as many calories in or as many drinks as many salt packets or whatever you have, gel packs, whatever you can to get through.
Speaker 4: What were you eating during the match today?
Mitchell Krueger: I think I only went through one banana and then I had five or so of my drinks. The mixed drinks that I have, three energy electrolyte gels. That was really it as far as eating.
Speaker 4: In terms of food, just a banana?
Mitchell Krueger: Yeah, food, I struggle to eat, not heavy, but just take food in on court because I don’t know, I just don’t feel like it sits well in my stomach. But having the ice towels and the ice bags definitely helps kind of cool your body temperature down on the changeovers.
Speaker 1: Did you allow yourself a moment to just sort of look around and appreciate the atmosphere that you were in?
Mitchell Krueger: There was countless times in the fifth when the chance for him started coming out. Had been pretty quiet up to that point. And then the rest of the crowd took over and made it 10 times louder than the other group. So it was like they were kind of going back and forth with each other and that was a crazy experience for me. But then it’s always a tricky situation because you want to stay grounded in the match, but you also want to use it to your advantage. And I felt like even though I lost, I was using them as best as I could, I felt like.
