The Next Next Gen

Only a one-year age gap and yet Mensik already has crazy experience compared to Jodar, which really shows how precocious the Czech is—we often forget that.

Finally a win right at the very end of a 5th set for Mensik, who has often imploded in this kind of match – usually he’s the one who cracks! He was happy about that actually, he said it felt good to feel like the fresher player on court in the last set. I don’t want to kill his buzz but it was Carreno, 34 years old on the other side, and above all Mensik himself was cooked for a long stretch before finding a second wind. On top of that he’s got the Auckland run in his legs too, not ideal. You could see very early in his match that he wasn’t at his best yet, his serve let him down at times even if he could rely on it in the key moments. This format is really tough for him, both mentally and physically, but with time and experience he’ll handle it better.

We have to talk about Jodar now, the Spaniard is starting to break through and it’s no surprise, he already plays very well and has top physical qualities for tennis. He came through a topsy-turvy match against Sakamoto, the Japanese player almost pulled off a remontada but he ran out of gas at the end, you can see Jodar is still figuring out the format. I’m really not a fan of Mensik in slams but I think he could hardly have asked for a better R2, normally he should get through again even without being perfect.