What if Jakub pulled it off again?

Mensik has already won a Masters 1000 in the United States and he’s progressing a bit in the shadows this week.

A last-gasp win against Bellucci, then a slightly more straightforward match against Hijikata for Mensik, who doesn’t get talked about that much, but whose ability to play well on this type of surface is well known. On TF, they’re saying he wasn’t really close to playing his best tennis in the last match, but I find that a bit harsh. I feel like he mostly managed his match well against an inspired Hijikata with an interesting game plan. In the end, Mensik was fairly comfortable most of the time and avoided a long match. That’s still pretty nice for what’s coming next, especially since it’ll be less hot in the next few days and we know he hates the heat. Anyway, for me, Mensik is arriving in good form and will even keep raising his level.

Tirante is also a threat, but in a different way. The Argentine is a giant-killer who’s comfortable as an underdog, and even though he’s basically a clay-court player, he adapts very well to hard courts. I liked his win over Landaluce in the sense that he stayed focused and did everything he needed to do to get the victory. But he’ll have to be even more clinical if he wants to take down big names. Mensik is not going to play like the Spaniard at all, on the contrary, I think we’ll see Tirante most of the time in attacking mode, or at least neutral.

He’s a player who can hit from anywhere and try just about anything. That’s good when he faces aggressive players because it reins him in a bit and forces him to tighten up his game. The problem is that Mensik returns extremely well. I’m worried we’ll see Tirante run out of ideas, as we’ve already seen several times this season against smart players who can absorb his power. It’s not a pleasant match-up for the Argentine. Getting a bit more into the details, sure, the forehand cross-court battle is in his favor, but the fact that he injects pace is going to suit Mensik, who’ll be able to use that speed on that side. I’m not even talking about the backhand diagonal, which is 100% in the Czech’s favor.