For years before Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal retired, fans of men’s tennis obsessed about the coming vacuum at the apex of the sport. Then, at seemingly thunderbolt service speed, the Carlos Alcaraz-Jannik Sinner rivalry blossomed. Their riveting five-set final at the French Open last year was lauded as among the finest ever played. The gods evidently love tennis.
If further proof were needed of a sport that has the gods watching over it, this year’s topsy-turvy French Open showcased plenty of young talent in the men’s game. Ahead of the tournament, Carlos Alcaraz’s withdrawal because of a persistent wrist injury made a Sinner victory seem a foregone conclusion. But, Sinner’s meltdown in the second round after being two sets to love up instead heightened concern about his ability to win five-set matches. Although tennis will most likely return to being the Alcaraz-Sinner duopoly of the past couple of years, in this interregnum, with question marks looming over the Italian’s long-match fitness and the Spaniard’s injured wrist, three young players look potentially able to go deep into the second week of a Grand Slam.
Jakub Mensik, the Czech player who turned 20 last September, showed plenty of grit and touch play as he made it to the French Open semifinals after encountering arguably the toughest draw in this year’s tournament. He collapsed on the court at the end of a five-set second round match and needed a wheelchair to reach the dressing room. Joao Fonseca, the 19-year-old Brazilian, displayed an explosive forehand and a heavy serve to come back from two sets down against Novak Djokovic. Only one other player has ever done that against the famously mentally tough Serb. The third of this troika of talent, Rafael Jodar, 19, reached the quarter-finals, despite carrying the extra burden of being Spanish and sharing a first name with the man who won 14 titles at the French Open. “Mensik, Fonseca and Jodar are blossoming at a time when tennis looks more fluid. They are not yet playing against history as players felt they were when playing the Big Three,” says Michael Steinberger, who has written authoritative profiles of Federer and Djokovic for The New York Times magazine. “In this case, you had a wide-open tournament. It created an opening from a psychological standpoint.”
As Wimbledon starts on 29 June, the three will be seeded among the top 32 and will be playing with the pressure of high expectations on a surface that has the shortest season, which makes the first week especially prone to big upsets. At the French Open, however, all three seized the opportunities that came their way with style. Fonseca’s rebound against all the wily play and wisdom of Djokovic was full of courage and self-belief. Time and again, the 19-year-old Brazilian found the lines with pin-point accuracy in the crucial later stages of the match. As it passed the 4-hour mark, Djokovic, who had returned to tennis after a three-month layoff for injury, vomited courtside. Fonseca had closed out a dramatic fifth set, coming back from 1-3 down with a display of force and finesse that belied his youth. To break Djokovic’s serve at 5-5 in the fifth, Fonseca hit some audacious drop shots. Down a breakpoint as he served for the match in the next game, Fonseca held his nerve. In one of the most spectacular finishes in a Grand Slam upset in recent years, the Brazilian served three consecutive aces after he faced a break point in the final game. “He just found incredible shots and the lines. It was just amazing from his side,” Djokovic said in the post-match press conference. “I don’t think I’ve done too much wrong with my game. It’s just that he was better.”
In the next round, Fonseca beat the two-time French Open finalist Casper Ruud in four sets. Although he got lucky in the second set tiebreaker when a set point for Ruud was incorrectly called out, which would have tied the match at a set apiece and given it a different complexion, the youngster rebounded after losing the third set to shut out the Norwegian 6-2 in the fifth by overpowering him.
Similarly, Mensik had to outrun and outwit the Australian world No.6 Alex de Minaur. Playing the Australian is like being up against an unyielding tennis practice wall; nearly everything comes back as the doughty competitor retrieves and retrieves. After being thrashed 0-6 in the first set, Mensik turned more aggressive. He followed serves and groundstrokes to the net where he hit drop volleys, including off balls dipping to his shoes, from a bygone era. His 6ft, 5-inch height makes him hard to pass but it is his touch that distinguishes him at the net. His service action is also quick and smooth and hard to read. Both proved assets in a five-set battle against the long-time top tenner, Andrey Rublev, in the round of 16. Mensik won the important hardcourt event, the Miami Open in 2025, beating his idol Novak Djokovic to do so. His impressive performance at the French Open shows that he has the strength to last five sets even in the midst of a torrid summer.
The showdown in the quarter-finals between Mensik and Fonseca may prove to be a forerunner of a rivalry for tennis to savour. Although Mensik won in straight sets 6-4,6-3,7-6, the match was much closer than the score suggested. In the youngest quarter-final in two decades, the more seasoned Mensik showed he could trade groundstrokes for as long as needed and make going to the net seem as natural as it might on a fast grass court. After he won a 27-stroke rally late in the first set, he seemed to have the measure of his opponent, but the match continued to be closely fought and was a showcase of aggressive tennis.
Fonseca sounded positive even after his loss, looking back at the French Open fortnight as a boost to his confidence. Questions had been raised about whether Fonseca would live up to his potential and about his staying power. At Roland Garros, he put the doubts about his speed and stamina to rest – even in his own mind. “I didn’t know if I could handle a five-hour match or a four-hour match. I never saw my limit yet, (but now) my mentality is on the right path,” Fonseca reflected. “I think after two matches that I had, losing the first two sets and then trying to find other ways to play, and got through. So, yeah, maybe it’s the same Joao, but finding new stuff.”
Saurav Ghoshal, the former India No.1 in squash and world top tenner, says that it is this “problem-solving” approach in matches on a grand stage that can build self-belief in a player. “Many players need those big wins to validate themselves and go ahead,” he says.
The competition in men’s tennis is so fierce that having a spectacular run at a Grand Slam event can often be followed by an early round loss in the following tournament. As tennis transitioned from clay to grass in the past couple of weeks, both Mensik and Fonseca were humbled, bouncing out of grass court warm-ups in London and Halle, respectively, to much lower ranked players. Jodar pulled out of Queen’s Club in London because of abdominal pain. He came through to the quarters at the French Open through a weak section of the draw; the lack of match practice on grass will discount his chances at Wimbledon. Mensik lost in three closely contested sets against the French player Adrian Mannarino, 37. The wily veteran yanked Mensik from side to side while often venturing to the net before Mensik could. It seemed as if Mensik’s footwork had not made the transition from the sliding that clay allows to the small steps that playing on grass requires. At Wimbledon, both Mensik and Fonseca will be in the spotlight as they seek to cement the claim that they have the consistency and the courage to make it to the second week at the sport’s most coveted tournaments.
Rahul Jacob is a Mint columnist and has written about Wimbledon for the past two decades for the Financial Times, London, and for Mint.