Mensik Magic in Miami
Geoff Burke
At 37 years and ten months, Novak Djokovic became the oldest player to reach an ATP Masters 1000 final in Miami this week. Djokovic defies time, continuing to show consistently excellent play deep into his career. Djokovic came into this week with 99 career titles, and looking to win a record 7th Miami Open title. He consistently shows the fight to improve even late into his career, even though he has few records left to break. Coming into the final, Djokovic was matched up against a player 18 years his junior, Jakub Mensik. Mensik, coming off wins against Jack Draper in the second round and world #4 Taylor Fritz in the semis, stepped into the ATP spotlight in a magnificent way. This was an incredibly unique match. The final featured the biggest age gap between two players in ATP Masters 1000 history. However, Djokovic is not on his way out. He is still one of the best in the world and he looked to prove that on Sunday. Let’s take a closer look at what happened.
Mensik vs. Djokovic Recap:
Delays are par for the course in tennis, not only in one of the largest events in the world, but in all of tennis. If your match is scheduled for 3:00 PM, you have to be prepared for it to go on at 8:30PM. That is exactly what happened here. After a nearly six hour delay due to rain, the players finally stepped on court. Long delays are a uniquely frustrating part of the sport, and the most keen point to look for at the start of this match was which player did a better job at preparing to play during the delay.
Surprisingly, it looked to be the teenager that came ready to play right from the first serve. Djokovic gifted him a break to put Mensik up 2-0 in the first set. Novak’s timing seemed off. His right eye was quite swollen pre-match, so that may have contributed to some of the timing issues he had early on in this match. He was catching quite a few balls late off the ground during the first half of the opening set, leading to multiple errors that you rarely see from one of, if not the best men’s player of all time. However, this match started to turn at 4-1 Mensik in the first set. Djokovic started to come to life, finding his rhythm after a shaky start to this match. He was dictating incredibly well from the baseline and defending even better. Djokovic has the rare ability to turn from defense to offense on a dime, using his excellent agility to work his way back into points, and then strike. Mensik was able to stay in this set through his massive serve, and the first set went to a tiebreak. It was as if we went back thirty minutes during the first half of the tiebreak, as Djokovic made shaky errors at 0-2 and 0-4, giving Mensik the opening he needed to take the breaker. Mensik was five for five in tiebreaks in Miami at this point, so it is not surprising he went six for six.
The first big moment of the second set came at 2-2 on the Djokovic serve. Mensik had two opportunities to break, but the veteran Djokovic’s experience came through. He remained calm and collected, and went ace - forced error back to back to hold for 3-2. Most often when playing Novak, you have to really earn points. It seems as if sometimes you have to win a point two or three times to just be given one. It can be incredibly frustrating tennis to play when you cannot help but think, “I just can’t put this guy away”. Djokovic was fighting the humid, slow conditions and battling through this set mid-way through. Fast forward to the end of the second. At 5-5, Djokovic fought through two errors in the first three points of the game to hold, fending off some top level baseline play from Mensik. Unsurprisingly, we were off to another tiebreaker in this match.
Early on in this breaker, Mensik looked much fresher than Djokovic. After Mensik went up 3-2, Djokovic fell to the court, laying down in physical anguish. Credit to Mensik here. In the extremely challenging conditions, he did not buckle. He kept his head down and worked through every problem thrown at him. The 19 year old took a 6-3 lead in the breaker, and after a small mental error on his first championship point, he bombed a first serve at 6-4 and it was over. Mensik took the tiebreaker, and the title.
The young upstart from Czechia has a ton of upside moving forward in his career. The standout aspect of this match, for me, was his mental toughness. It is so incredibly hard, as I wrote earlier, to put Djokovic away in a single point, let alone a match. To compliment this, he has a massive first serve and plays a first strike style of tennis where he looks to dictate early in points off of his forehand wing. If he improves his second serve (he has the biggest average drop in MPH from his first to second serve in the top 50), he will be a consistently top player moving forward. Congratulations to Jakub Mensik, who became only the fourth player in ATP history to win his first title at a Masters 1000 event.
Geoff Burke
ATP Highlights from Miami:
All four Indian Wells semi finalists, Daniil Medvedev, Carlos Alcaraz, Holger Rune, and Champion Jack Draper, lost in the second round in Miami (after all receiving byes in round 1).
Nick Kygrios won an ATP Tour level match for the first time in two years. It was fantastic to see one of the most entertaining players on the planet back in the fold.
After seeing Yosuke Watanuki of Japan downing a Pepsi during his third round match in Indian Wells, I thought I had seen it all. Nope. Argentinian Francisco Comesana lit up a cigarette on a changeover during a qualifying match in Miami. He even asked the chair umpire for a light. No joke. I have officially seen it all (I think?).
WTA Highlights from Miami:
Aryna Sabalenka had an unbelievable week, going all the way to a title without dropping a set. It was her third final of the year in “big title” events, making the final of the Australian Open and Indian Wells, losing both, before finally clinching the title in Miami. No one really came close to even giving Sabalenka a scare. She goes into the clay court swing in excellent form.
18 year old Victoria Mboko of Burlington, Ontario was a few points away from pulling off one of the biggest upsets of the WTA season thus far. After winning her first round match, she was taken out by 10 seed, and 2025 Australian Open semi-finalist, Paula Badosa. Mboko spoke with The Slice after her first round win against Osorio.
After losing in the first round at Indian Wells, former world #1 Naomi Osaka went on a run to the round of 16 this week, losing to Paolini in three sets.
Geoff Burke
Canadian Corner:
In Miami, our highest Canadian seed was again Gaby Dabrowski in women’s doubles, sliding in at the 2 seed with Erin Routliffe. They unfortunately were upset in round 2.
Felix Auger-Alisassime won his first round match before losing in three sets to Lorenzo Musetti of Italy in the third round, 4-6-, 6-2, 6-3. Denis Shapovalov kept it close with 4th seed Taylor Fritz in the first set, but ended up losing 7-5, 6-3 in the third round.
Leylah Annie Fernandez was upset by 20 year old world #40 Ashlyn Krueger of the U.S., 6-1, 7-5, also in the third round.
Geoff Burke
Elsewhere on the ATP and WTA Tours:
There were no other events this week on the main ATP and WTA Tours.
A WTA 125K event took place in Puerto Vallerta, Mexico, with 3 Canadians taking part in the event. Rebecca Marino, Marina Stakusic, and Carol Zhao all competed.
Elsewhere in Mexico, there was an ATP Challenger event in Morelia. Alternate Dmitry Popko took the title.
ATP Rankings Update:
Big Movers:
Unsurprisingly, Miami Open Champion Jakub Mensik was the biggest mover this week, moving up thirty spots to #24.
Arthur Fils of France moved up three spots to world #15, after a run to the quarterfinals this week in Miami.
After winning his first round match in Miami, Jacob Fearnley of Great Britain moved up 10 spots to #73.
WTA Rankings Update:
After making the round of 16 this week, Ukrainian Elina Svitolina moved up 4 spots to #18.
American Ashlyn Krueger moved up 6 spots to a career high #34.
Coming off of winning the 125K event in Puerto Vallerta this week, Romanian Jaqueline Cristian moved up 15 spots to #57.
