Novak Djokovic has revealed why he wanted to mentor Jakub Mensik after his loss to the 19-year-old Czech star in the championship match at the 2025 Miami Open.<\/p>\n
The 37-year-old Serbian was beaten 7-6(4), 7-6(4) in a tight final at the Masters 1000 tournament as he missed out on winning a 100th ATP singles title.<\/p>\n
Mensik, who was ranked 54th at the start of the tournament, secured his first-ever career title in what was just his second final.<\/p>\n
Here is everything Djokovic<\/a> said in his post-match press conference.<\/p>\n DJOKOVIC:<\/strong> Congratulations to Mensik<\/a> and his team. Never really happy to lose, but he\u2019s one of the very few players that I would be happier to lose to, to be honest. I\u2019ve seen him play when he was 15 or 16, I invited him, we had some training blocks together, he was training at my club in Belgrade and to see his development and evolution is really great, amazing.<\/p>\n I could see back then already that \u2013 three four years ago \u2013 that he\u2019s going to be one of the top players of the world. So I\u2019m super glad that he\u2019s using the potential that he has because he\u2019s got the complete game. Obviously serve is incredible, powerful, precise and wins a lot of free points with the first serve. Backhand as well, Czech school, they always have a great backhand. But forehand, he\u2019s improved a lot. And movement, for a tall, big guy like that, he slides and moves well. And he still can improve, of course, so I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll be seeing him around.<\/p>\n Yeah, it\u2019s unfortunate for me, two tiebreaks, just very weird match, weird day with rain delay and all the things that are happening. I honestly didn\u2019t feel my greatest on the court, but it is what it is, nothing to take away from his victory.<\/p>\n DJOKOVIC:<\/strong> I really prefer not to talk about\u2026 there\u2019s quite a few things, but I prefer not to\u2026 just congratulate him, that\u2019s it. I don\u2019t wanna sound like I\u2019m gonna getting excuses here for my loss.<\/p>\n DJOKOVIC:\u00a0<\/strong>Well, I mean, I love the fighting spirit when he was down in that final in Australia I saw (the 2022 Australian Open boys\u2019 final). Obviously big game, seemed like a nice guy, Eastern European. So I gave a call through management, my\u00a0management to his\u00a0management. We found a connection, he accepted to come and yeah, so we had like three training blocks together. And actually his physio who\u2019s with him now was my physio, Serbian guy, so there\u2019s a lot of connecting things that we have in common. As I said, big game, big potential, I\u2019m sure that he\u2019s got a bright future.<\/p>\n DJOKOVIC:\u00a0<\/strong>If you have a big serve, and he\u2019s been serving consistently 20 aces a match\u2026 I mean, in the tiebreak, each player serves two points and he puts so much pressure. You make one mistake, two and you\u2019re down a mini-break, then he starts serving big and it\u2019s gone, tiebreak is gone basically.<\/p>\n 9 stellar Jakub Mensik feats and statistics after sensational Miami Open title win<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Jakub Mensik\u2019s \u2018lucky\u2019 admission as Novak Djokovic is again forced to wait for 100th ATP title<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n DJOKOVIC:\u00a0<\/strong>As I answered before, I don\u2019t want to get into details, but it is what it is. It\u2019s the same for both players, you have to accept the circumstances. I tried to make the most out of what I had, or what I was facing, but yeah, it was quite different from any other day of the tournament for me.<\/p>\n DJOKOVIC:\u00a0<\/strong>I mean, the serve consistency, I think he was serving even better than he was serving in Shanghai, and there he was serving really well. I think game was similar, but my level was not like it was in Shanghai.<\/p>\n DJOKOVIC:\u00a0<\/strong>Yeah, I mean overall, obviously now bitter taste because of the loss, but Miami, as I said on the court, really brought me a lot of joy and really good sensations on and off the court. I was very welcomed very nicely by people and supported incredible again tonight, great support from the stadium. In the match they were pushing me on and trying to give me strength for a comeback. Very grateful, just enjoyed my experience overall, it was an amazing run. Unfortunately ended with a loss in the finals, but I played some really good tennis up to today.<\/p>\n READ NEXT:\u00a0Novak Djokovic eye problem sparks a social media storm at Miami Open<\/a> The post Every word from Novak Djokovic\u2019s press conference after Jakub Mensik Miami Open final defeat<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Novak Djokovic has revealed why he wanted to mentor Jakub Mensik after his loss to the 19-year-old Czech star in the championship match at the 2025 Miami Open. The 37-year-old Serbian was beaten 7-6(4), 7-6(4) in a tight final at the Masters 1000 tournament as he missed out on winning a 100th ATP singles title. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}High praise for Mensik and how he felt in \u201cvery weird match\u201d<\/h4>\n
Did the humidity and his eye problem affect him?<\/h4>\n
What made Djokovic want to mentor Mensik<\/h4>\n
Why Mensik was so good in tiebreaks in Miami<\/h4>\n
ATP Tour News<\/h2>\n
Dealing with the five-and-a-half hour delay, and was his vision on court okay?<\/h4>\n
Standout improvement in Mensik\u2019s game from their match in Shanghai last year<\/h4>\n
Overall feeling from his return to the Miami Open<\/h4>\n
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