Jakub Mensik

Jakub Mensik is the latest graduate of Prostejov, the Czech tennis hub that produced Tomas Berdych, Radek Stepanek and Petra Kvitova — and where the young Mensik grew up watching his idols train at the national center. He served notice at the 2023 US Open, qualifying and reaching the third round at 17, then made his first tour-level final at the 2024 Qatar Open, where he fell to Karen Khachanov but became the first player born in 2005 to reach an ATP final.

At 6-foot-4, the right-hander is built around a first serve that ranks among the heaviest on tour — a delivery he can flatten past 135 mph and disguise out of an identical toss, making it the foundation of nearly every game he plays. The forehand is the secondary weapon, a flat, downhill strike he uses to end points early; the movement and the backhand under pressure are the parts of the game still catching up to the firepower. On a fast hard court he can shorten matches into a string of holds and one stolen break.

His signature result came at the 2025 Miami Open, where Mensik won the title — beating Novak Djokovic in the final and denying the Serb a 100th career trophy — to announce himself as a Masters-1000 champion before turning 20. The run vaulted him into the top 20 and established him among the most coveted young hard-court players outside the Jannik Sinner–Carlos Alcaraz tier.

Now ranked No. 17, Mensik heads a Czech cohort that includes Jiri Lehecka and Tomas Machac. The current task is the familiar one for a serve-first big man: translating the indoor and hard-court ceiling onto clay and into the deep weeks of Slams, where holding serve alone no longer settles matches.