<\/p>\n
\nJakub Mensik, of Czechia, reacts at the end of his final against Novak Djokovic, of Serbia, during the Miami Open on March 30, 2025.
\nPhoto: Chris Arjoon\/Icon Sportswire \/ PHOTOSPORT\n<\/p>\n
Jakub Mensik, the youngest player in the world’s top 20, will return to Auckland for the ASB Classic in January.<\/p>\n
The 20-year-old Czech tennis player is currently ranked 16 in the world.<\/p>\n
He started the year ranked number 49 before beating former world top-10 Pablo Carreno Busta and pre-tournament favourite Ben Shelton in Auckland this year.<\/p>\n
“Winning in Auckland against Ben Shelton was a special moment for me,” Mensik said. “At the time I had not beaten many guys in the top 20 so in the second round and early in the season, this gave me a lot of confidence,” Mensik said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“I remember that match. It was spectacular and the atmosphere out there around the court was great. I had so much fun and I’m looking forward to see you guys again.”<\/p>\n
Mensik won his maiden Masters 1000 in Miami in March beating Novak Djokovic in two tiebreak sets in the final.<\/p>\n
“Winning the Masters 1000 in Miami was a huge moment in my career – and beating Novak in the final made it more special as he was my idol when I was young.<\/p>\n
“Since that moment I started to produce good performances in other tournaments because Miami gave me a boost in my confidence.”<\/p>\n
A number of players have confirmed their return to the ASB Classic including champion Gael Monfis<\/a>, 2025 finalist Naomi Osaka<\/a> and New Zealand number one Lulu Sun<\/a>.<\/p>\n The ASB Classic starts on 5 January with the women’s tournament, while the men start a week later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jakub Mensik, of Czechia, reacts at the end of his final against Novak Djokovic, of Serbia, during the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,1590,63,1589,44,1591,1588,1586,1587,85,747],"class_list":["post-196241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-audio","tag-australia","tag-current-affairs","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}