Jakub Mensik: Youngest Player Making History at the US Open

He’s in the US Open history books

Youngest player still in contention in the main draw for men, Jakub Mensik is a model of pure and hard precocity. The native of Prostejov even does better than Carlos Alcaraz or the Big Three in Flushing. That is to say if precocity is the word.

By qualifying for the 3rd round of the US Open, the Czech entered the top 10 of the youngest players to have climbed to this stage of the tournament in the Big Apple. At 17 years and 11 months, he ranks 9th behind names that speak: Aaron Krickstein (1st in the ranking), Michael Chang, Boris Becker, among others.

The last to have achieved such a performance in Flushing, at 17, was a certain Fabrice Santoro in 1990. Another broken record: that of Borna Coric, the youngest player to have won a match in the big picture in 2014. Mensik breaks all the barriers.

Nice wink: he turns 18 this Friday, the day of his third round match against Taylor Fritz. “I hope that I will play on a big court suddenly,” laughed the revelation of the tournament. It has been heard: he will play a night session on the Louis-Armstrong court. “Playing a 3rd round of the US Open for his 18th birthday is not so bad.”

A first on the ideal grand circuit

Jakub Mensik discovers the very high level in New York. Obliged to be on the secondary and tertiary circuit because of his ranking (he is 206th this week), the right-hander obtained on paper to be in the cut for the qualifications of the US Open. His progress is also phenomenal: he was 676th at the start of the US Open 2022.

The 2023 edition is therefore his first Grand Slam appearance. Before approaching the qualifications, he had only played one match on the big circuit, during the qualifications of the Belgrade Open 250, where he had received a wild card (you will understand why in the “Djokovic” part , Editor’s note). In the statistics, the qualifying matches do not count more, so for the ATP, he had never played on the main circuit.

Jakub Mensik during the qualifications for the Belgrade Open in 2022

Credit: Getty Images

In New York, Mensik beat a certain Fabio Fognini in the first round, before confirming against the Swiss Leandro Riedi and his compatriot Zdenek Kolar. The rest, you know it: he beat two Frenchmen, Grégoire Barrère and Titouan Droguet, to sign his first successes on the big circuit. If his journey ends in the 3rd round, he will be ranked in 146th place after the US, 195 points from the Top 100.

The barrier of “100” is not so far away, even if he enters the quicksand zone between the 100th and 200th place. Despite the pitfalls ahead, he seems destined to join Jiri Lehecka in the top 50 in not too long. Czech tennis is therefore in good hands after the vacuum following the retirements of Radek Stepanek and Tomas Berdych.

“It’s something really nice,” comments the Czech hopeful. “Before the tournament, I spoke with my coach and said: ‘Hey, this is my first Grand Slam, we go there and enjoy the atmosphere of the first time, with all the good work that “we did. After a good season (he won a first Challenger title in Prague, editor’s note), it’s sort of a ‘revenge’. It’s my gift after a good season. I’m very satisfied with my results here at the US Open. Hopefully I can continue like this in the next few rounds.”

Jakub Mensik and Zdenek Kolar during US Open 2023 qualifying

Credit: Imago

He sees a mental trainer

Nothing too surprising for a tennis player who aspires to great things – no surprises Mensik wants to win Grand Slams and be world No. 1 – but the aspirant sees a mental coach. A Serb named Dragan Vujovic. Mensik has worked with him for several years.

“When I was younger, I was too excited on the court, I had too much negative energy. We started to work and improve on this aspect on and off the court. It helped me a lot “, he reveals. Now I can say that my mental stability is very good for these kinds of matches and tournaments. It is also important for my game, even if it can be improved. But in my last matches, it helped me in pivotal moments. Against guys in the top 60, when there are important points at 5-5 and 30/30, it’s very important.”

Djokovic took him under his wing

Already brilliant as a junior last year, Mensik had caught the eye of a certain Novak Djokovic who had watched his epic loss as a junior final at the Australian Open 2022 against American Bruno Kuzuhara (7 -6, 6-7, 7-5, after 3h43 of play). Proof that the Serb had not cut 100% despite the episode of his exclusion from the country. Impressed by what he had seen, Djoko therefore recorded a video to congratulate him and invite him to hit a few balls in his Belgrade academy.

“He was looking for someone to hit the ball for a week,” Mensik told ATP. “I was like, ‘Ok, why not?’ It’s one of the best in the world. So I said, ‘Okay, let’s do this.’ didn’t just talk about tennis, but also things outside of it. He was really funny. And off the court, he’s one of the nicest guys I’ve met. When he talks to you, it’s he’s a normal person, it doesn’t look like he’s a tennis player.”

Mensik collapses, the champion Kuzuhara comes to greet him: the surprising epilogue of the Juniors tournament

A story reminiscent of Federer’s

Coming from a family of athletes, Jakub Mensik got into tennis quite by chance when he was very young, after seeing young people training near his home. Trained by a coach named Ivo Muller, the player had the misfortune to lose his mentor to cancer in 2013. This is reminiscent of what happened to Federer with his coach Peter Carter, although the two stories are radically different. different. Very hot-tempered younger, as mentioned above, Mensik also had a temper worthy of the younger years of RF.

In an interview given to the ATP, Michal Mensik, Jakub’s father, admitted that this brutal loss had had a strong impact on his son. “He was really small when it happened, he was 7 years old (he was born on September 1, 2005, editor’s note). It was his first experience with such a situation. He was sad and it was the first time that we had the opportunity to talk with him about death and that sort of thing. He was obviously sick, but life had to go on.”

Bruno Kuzuhara comes to see Jakub Mensik in the final of the Australian Open juniors in 2022

Credit: Getty Images

2023-09-01 01:01:02
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