Jakub Mensik joins new wave of rising ATP stars in Miami

“It’s great that there is new blood always,” Jakub Mensik said with a smile at the Australian Open in January. “We can see that tennis is moving on. We can see new names in the tournaments. For fans, for tennis, for everything, it’s really great.”

The 19-year-old Czech sounded very sure of himself as he spoke those words in January. The first three months of the season, and especially the Sunshine Double, have shown us why. Joao Fonseca, Jack Draper, Arthur Fils, Learner Tien, Jiri Lehecka, Alex Michelsen, Coleman Wong, Jerry Shang: Virtually every week, it seems, we see a breakout performance on the men’s side. We may look back on last fall’s Next Gen Finals, which featured many of the young names mentioned above, as an event that lived up to its name and launched a generation.

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Before Miami, the one guy from that tournament who hadn’t quite broken out in 2025 was Mensik himself. Since upsetting Casper Ruud at the Australian Open, he hadn’t won two matches in a row at a tour event. But a good week at a Challenger in the Dominican Republic set the stage for an even better 10 days in Miami. He edged Jack Draper in two tiebreakers in the second round, and, on Thursday he straight-setted Fils, his fellow Next Genner, 7-6 (5), 6-1.

“It feels incredible, the biggest result of my career,” said Mensik, who is into his first Masters 1000 semifinal.

The warm air and quicker courts in Miami have obviously been to his liking.

“Conditions are pretty much really good for me,” he says. “Much faster than it was in Indian Wells. The heat and the weather is pretty nice.”

Mensik’s draw in Miami, we have to say, has also been pretty nice to him. He caught Draper a week after the Brit made his own breakthrough title run in Indian Wells, and may have been due for a letdown. He received a walkover from his countryman Tomas Machac. And he played Fils when the Frenchman was coming off two grueling three-set wins the previous two days.

But while Fils did start slowly on Thursday, and spotted Mensik a 3-0 lead, he made the Czech earn the first set. He broke back for 3-4, and then had two break points with Mensik serving at 5-5. Was he going to steal the set? Mensik, after putting three straight backhands into the net, looked ready to crumble.

The new names are coming up in tennis, and of course we are here to follow the steps of Jannik [Sinner] and Carlos [Alcaraz]...New blood is coming. Jakub Mensik

That’s when he called on his get-out-of-jail-free card, the shot that he’s going to live and die with: His serve. At 6-foot-4, with an uncluttered motion that has been drilled to near-perfection, this shot may be one of the ATP’s most important weapons of the next decade. Mensik hit 21 aces in two sets against Draper last week, and 13 against Fils on Thursday.

But it was the ace that he hit to save the first break point at 5-5 that meant the most. Mensik missed his first serve, and Fils moved up for the second; he had punished a couple of Mensik’s short second-serve kicks just before. Maybe because of that, Mensik went for more and got it, in the form of a short-angle slice that Fils could only watch go by. Something clicked for the Czech after that. He followed with two more aces to hold, closed the set in a tiebreaker, and never trailed in the third.

Mensik needed every unreturnable serve he could get, because he was a little ragged from the baseline, a fact that he attributed to playing on the main court, where the bounce is lower and slower, for the first time.

“I wasn’t feeling that comfortable during the ground strokes because it was my first match in the stadium court,” he said. “But I’m glad I found the rhythm.”

Mensik looks built to play a team sport or a contact sport—maybe basketball or rugby. For now, while his overall game is raw, he’s showing that he can win primarily with the brute power and precision of his serve. But he’ll need more than that to continue rising. Fortunately, he seems to be setting reasonable and attainable goals for himself.

Asked what his biggest success has been so far, he told the ATP’s website, “Being on ATP Tour for one year, to be stable there, and to play against the best players in the world.”

Asked what accomplishment he’s chasing, he said, “If we are talking about this season, I’d like to reach the Top 30. I think it’s just a good goal, a good set goal.”

So far, Mensik hasn’t garnered the same attention as his fellow teenager Fonseca, but he knows that will change with better results.

“The new names are coming up in tennis, and of course we are here to follow the steps of Jannik [Sinner] and Carlos [Alcaraz],” he says. “At the end, you know, the attention will receive the one who is the best player in the world.”

“New blood is coming.”