Jakub Menšík lost in the qualification for the tournament in Miami to Slovakian Lukáš Klein. The match was very close and the Czech tennis player lost his nerve after the first set and threw his racket. He narrowly missed the ball feeders, and he received an avalanche of criticism on social media. His entire team is aware of the seriousness of this action and will try to ensure that it never happens again.
Menšík is having a breakthrough season at the age of 18. At the Australian Open, he reached the main competition, and in the first round he even beat the former world number ten Denis Shapovalova.
At the ATP tournament in Doha, he even reached the final, where he lost to Rus Khačanov. On the way to the final, he knocked out Andy Murray, Andrej Rubjlov or Gaël Monfils.
But he can’t just do well all the time, and the young Czech unfortunately couldn’t mentally handle the tight end of the first set of the qualifying match of the tournament in Miami against Lukáš Klein and threw his racket towards the bench in anger. The rocket flew past the ball collector and luckily no one was hurt. In the end, Menšík lost the match 6:7 and 5:7.
Jakub Mensik about to kill the ball boy? pic.twitter.com/TaNZRsYmVV
— TenisJefferson (@BetsJeffrey) March 19, 2024
“This is not funny, wtf. Does ATP need to institute anger management classes or what? Does anyone really have to suffer to make changes? Because this behavior is far too tolerated,” he wrote one of the fans posted a video of the incident. More fans came forward with criticism. Rather than against the person of Jakub Menšík, however, they focused in general on the outbursts of anger of the players on the circuit and on their punishment.
This case is certainly not exceptional, and even the best players occasionally lose their temper and smash the racket or hit the ball. In some cases, unfortunately, it ends up in the injury of someone on the field or spectators.
Menšík’s coach Tomáš Josefus is in the Czech Republic for health reasons, but he has already spoken to his charge about the incident. “If it was five centimeters or half a meter, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t excuse Cuba in anything. These situations do not belong in tennis. I talked about it with Kuba and his parents. We are all fully aware that this is not right. I consider it important to solve it over time, so I solved it with Cuba. He has no words for it, he is fully aware of it, unfortunately he will not take it back. We have discussed this so that it does not happen again in the future,” said Menšík’s coach for TN.cz.
”For a long time, we also manage Kuba with a mental coach and parents and talk about these situations. It’s not the first time, but I hope it won’t happen again. It’s not an excuse, but we see that it’s also being addressed by world-class players. It happened to Rublev in Dubai, let’s remember Novak Djokovic when he was disqualified from the US Open, or maybe earlier Denis Shapovalov. These are, of course, extreme cases where basically the same thing happens, only with disqualification, because someone really hits or something happens,” explains Josefus.
In the match, Menšík received a warning from the referee. There is usually a standardized fine for this. “If it was possible to take it back a little, Kuba would do it. Unfortunately, we cannot travel in time. He is fully aware of this. Of course, we around him are doing everything to guide him not only on the right tennis path, but also personally. We will constantly work on these things as well,” coach Menšík concluded.
Tennis player Bublik destroyed three rackets in a fit of rage at a tournament in Montpellier:
TN.cz
