![\"tennis](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Pro-Player-Gear-610X150-03.jpg\")
tennis express pro player gear<\/p>\nDespite a disappointing loss to Alexander Zverev in Friday\u2019s semifinals at Roland Garros, 20-year-old Czech Jakub Mensik is taking plenty of positives into the rest of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He reached his first Grand Slam quarterfinal and semifinal, and proved to be a beast in long matches, despite severe physical difficulties.\u00a0<\/p>\n
tennis express pro player gear<\/p>\n
Remember this was a player that could not get up off the clay after his dramatic second-round win over Mariano Navone in a fifth-set tiebreak. Many thought he\u2019d have nothing left after that four hour and 41-minute battle in extreme heat, but Mensik went on to notch three more wins, over Alex de Minaur, Andrey Rublev (again in five sets) and Joao Fonseca to reach his maiden Slam semifinal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Friday he said he couldn\u2019t really figure out how to attack Zverev.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really tough for me to find it today,\u201d Mensik told reporters after the four-set loss. \u201cWith the right shot selection or to play the tactic \u2013 for example serve and volley or a lot of dropshots \u2013\u00a0 at the right moments, of course there were a lot of situations where those points won me a lot of games.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It felt like Mensik was in too much haste to shorten points with drop shots, and he did seem reluctant to play backhand to backhand rallies with Zverev. In one case, it makes sense to try to play into Zverev\u2019s forehand, but Mensik seemed to leave bullets in his holster by not trying to dictate more with his lethal backhand cross.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, some of [my tactics] didn\u2019t go that well,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it would be tomorrow, after tomorrow, and I would play the same, maybe with the better shot selection, I could be the one who could win it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite the tough loss, Mensik comes away with a new sense of belief after his breakout performance. The 20-year-old will move on with the knowledge that he can last in a major under extreme physical duress. Not many players come to that realization at such a young age.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSuper happy that I could reach the semifinals and that I could beat a lot of top players,\u201d said the 20-year-old. \u201cThere were a lot of tough moments where it was basically already done for me. But I stood up and I kept fighting, and I found a way to win.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the momentum was on my side and I was in a good shape and I was really up in my game, I showed the best that is in me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy that I managed it quite well and I will take it as a great, great tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite a disappointing loss to Alexander Zverev in Friday\u2019s semifinals at Roland Garros, 20-year-old Czech Jakub Mensik is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-718706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718706","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=718706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}