The 20-year-old Spaniard who impressed in Miami: "This week brought me a lot"

Martin Landaluce (20, ATP No. 151) exited the Miami Open in the quarterfinals, falling to Jiri Lehecka (24, world No. 22) 7-6 (1), 7-5. Despite the loss, Landaluce is set for a significant jump in the rankings and expressed satisfaction with the lessons learned.

The Spanish talent, Martin Landaluce, a former US Open junior champion in 2022, is steadily making his mark on the ATP Tour, particularly on the hard courts that brought him early success. At the Miami Masters 1000 event, he achieved his best career performance, reaching the quarterfinals.

His run ended there against Jiri Lehecka. Coming through qualifying, Landaluce had previously defeated Marcos Giron (USA), Luciano Darderi (Italy), 14th seed Karen Khachanov, and 32nd seed Sebastian Korda.

This impressive showing will see him climb 46 spots in the live world rankings, reaching 105th, though he is guaranteed a spot within the top 110.

“It's been an incredible week. In recent months and weeks, I've felt confident that I could achieve something significant in these tournaments, but I didn't set such high goals as I did here,” he stated, according to Punto de Break.

“Today I didn't play as well as I would have liked, but it was a tough match. Jiri played very well, served well, so I'm trying to learn from him to improve and continue on this path,” he added, referring to his loss against the Czech player. “I believe I'm playing at a very high level. I think my place is at this level, and if I continue to play like this, improving in all aspects, I believe I can achieve great things,” the young Madrid-born player continued.

When asked if anything had changed this week, he responded, “The projects I was working on came together. Throughout my career, and this year too, I believed good things would come, but I didn't think it would be 'my moment.' I thought they would come, but what has changed in the last two weeks is precisely this: the moment is now. I don't want to wait; I know things will come, but I want them to come now. I've put that into practice in recent weeks, and especially in this tournament, and I think that was the change.”

He noted that this week in Miami “brought me a lot, beyond points and matches; I gained confidence, and the certainty of being at this level, of having a high standard, was important for me.” His favorite moment was observing how, with each round he advanced, more friends and family came to support him.

He was also touched by the support of Rafael Nadal, at whose academy he has trained since childhood. “I heard he watched some videos of my matches and spoke about me. That makes me very happy. I'll see him at the academy, and I hope we can chat a bit and I can improve,” Landaluce said.