Last May, Menšík dominated the tournament in Sparta, which made him the youngest challenger champion in Czech history. At 17 years and eight months. Tomáš Berdych was only a few weeks older in 2003, when he also won two challenger titles at the age of seventeen.
In addition, the junior singles finalist at the 2022 Australian Open became one of five 17-year-old holders of challenger primaries in the past five years, alongside Jannik Sinner (2019) and Carlos Alcaraz (2020). And that attracted attention.
“I knew I could play with good opponents, but I had no experience. But after a few tournaments, I really started to believe in myself and play my best tennis,” praised Menšík, who unexpectedly made it to the third round of the US Open to celebrate his 18th birthday. He also presented his growing performance in the Davis Cup qualification in Valencia, where he won his debut in a rarely seen manner against the much more experienced Serbian Dušan Lajović.
“With coach Tomáš Josefus, Kuba has done a huge amount of work in two years. He also has great self-confidence and I believe that if he continues to work hard, he will move even more towards the top 100,” Davis Cup captain Jaroslav Navrátil told Sport.cz.
Menšík himself, who plays drums and micromagic in his free time, did not avoid comparisons to the best Czech tennis player of the 21st century. “They call me ‘New Berdyč’ in America too, but I don’t really notice it that much. Tomáš is a bit different in type, certainly more muscular. But otherwise there are quite a lot of similarities,” explained Menšík for Sport.cz.
Brandon Nakashima awaits him in the first round of the Melbourne qualification, whom he defeated twice 7:5 in Canberra a few days ago. The American with Japanese and Vietnamese ancestry will certainly be vehemently seeking revenge. Nakashima was already 43rd in the world, in 2022 he dominated the Next Gen, or Tournament of Champions for under-21 players, when he defeated Jiří Lehečka in the final. Last year, however, his form slipped somewhere, he disappeared from the top 100, and much more progress was made by the young Czechs, including the confident Menšík.
“If I was more nervous, not so goal-oriented, I wouldn’t have provoked myself to perform well. But lately, we’ve been working really hard with the coach, and that also gives me confidence, because I’m on a good track because of it,” Menšík explained. It would be nice if he kept it in Australia.
