Jakub Mensik, after five hours, 31 minutes on the field for two days, the Czech Republic’s 3-2 Marathon Davis Cup ends up over the United States – World Tennis Magazine

By Randy Walker

@TenniisPublisher

In a last day of play that lasted more than 10 hours, including a rain and lightning strike, the Davis Cup team from the Czech Republic gathered the United States 3-2 in the second round of Davis Cup in Delray Beach, Florida.

Rising Star Jakub Mensik, 20 years old, won the decisive game at one minute after midnight Sunday morning and defeated Frances Tiafoe 6-1, 6-4. Jiri Lehecka suggested Mensik for the decisive competition profit by World No. 5 Taylor Fritz 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 to disturb the best-of-Five match series earlier on Saturday evening 2-2.

The last day of play started with a dramatic double victory for the United States when Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram Mensik and Tomas Machac 7-6 (6), 5-7, 6-4 defeated to place the United States 2-1 in a game that officially lasted two hours and 40 minutes, a two-hour rain and lighting delay.

Mensik, who won the Miami, opened an hour south of Delray Beach in Hard Rock Stadium in March, was combined for three hours and 52 minutes on Saturday in his singles and double matches. He was a late replacement in the double rubber, to replace the originally nominated Adam Pavlasek, who started at 2 p.m. local time after he had ended his opening -up lesson match against Fritz on Friday evening at 10:52 pm. In all Mensik, ranked no. 17 in the ATP Singles Rankings, played five hours and 31 minutes of tennis during the two -day event.

The Czech Republic continues to the eight-countries Davis Cup Final 8 in November in Bologna, Italy. In the meantime, the US is waiting for its draw for the qualifying round of 2026, which will have a traditional home-and-road that in February.

The United States were Snake Bit for the series against the Czechs as two of the originally nominated players, World No. 6 Ben Shelton and World No. 15 Tommy Paul were forced to withdraw from the event with injuries. Fritz, the top American player and the 2024 US Open Runner-Up, said he was sick for most of the week, causing him to practice much in the days that led to the event. Tiafoe, the former world no. 10 at number 14 in the world when he was named after the team earlier this summer, has since fallen to No. 29 and was vocally about his loss of trust in his game after a loss of the third round at the US open for No. 98 arranged Jan-Lennard Struff. Tiafoe was originally, on paper, a backup singles player in the draw based on his ranking that was lower than both Shelton and Paul and his poor Davis Cup record. With his two singles losses in Delray Beach, the Davis Cup record from Tiafoe fell to 1-7, with his only victory in a final Tiebreaker against Nicolas Mejia by Colombia, who was arranged at number 275 at that time in 2021.

On the opening day of the game on Friday evening, which was postponed for about 90 minutes, Lehecka Tiafoe defeated in the first singles match with 6-3, 6-2 while Fritz Mensik 6-4, 6-3 defeated.