Mensik Overtakes Lendl: The Youngest Czech in a Slam Semifinal

Jakub Mensik beat Brazil's Joao Fonseca 6-4, 6-3, 7-6(3) in two hours and thirty-three minutes, reaching the first Slam semifinal of his career and becoming, at twenty years and 265 days, the youngest Czech ever to do so in the Open Era.

The record had belonged to Ivan Lendl, a semifinalist (and then finalist) in Paris back in 1981 at twenty-one: a heavyweight name to displace in the history of Czech tennis. It isn't the only record Mensik takes home with this win, because he is also the first player born in 2004 or later to push his way into the last four at a Grand Slam tournament, ahead of Fonseca himself and the entire generation coming up around him.

The clash between the two twenty-year-olds carried the weight of a duel between peers destined to meet often. Mensik handled the decisive moments with composure, though he wasted six match points on Fonseca's serve before closing it out in the tie-break, on the seventh, in one of the most solid matches of his young clay-court season — a surface that has never been considered his favorite.

Alexander Zverev awaits him in the semifinal, and Mensik didn't hold back: he said he believes in his chances of winning the tournament and feels at the peak of his confidence. Words that, from anyone else at this stage of the draw, would sound predictable, but coming from a kid in his first Slam semifinal they reveal just how quickly his ambition has matured.