Jakub Mensik provided a dose of drama at Swiss Indoors Basel on Monday, overcoming fearless home wildcard Henry Bernet 35 minutes after missing his first match point.
The seventh seed secured a 7-6(1), 6-7(7), 6-3 victory over 18-year-old Bernet, the Basel native making his ATP Tour debut. After dropping a match point in the second set tiebreak, Mensik used his experience to regroup and ultimately drowned out the crowd with a clutch serve to earn his first win at the indoor hardcourt ATP 500 event.
“It was a very, very hard night. I was in his.” [position] two years ago, and I know what it feels like to be hungry and fight for every point, and I felt it from him today,” Mensik said after his first Lexus ATP Head2Head clash with Bernet. “He has such a huge game, a very aggressive style. One of his greatest qualities is his mental strength.”
Bernet, who won the Australian Open boys title this year, was aiming to become the youngest Swiss match winner in Basel since his idol and 10-time record champion Roger Federer – then aged 18 – in 1999. He defeated the Mensik winners 27 to 23 in the first two sets, but struggled to cope with the Czech star once he found his range.
Mensik won 94 percent (15/16) of first-serve points and hit nine of his total 18 aces in the deciding set, according to Infosys ATP Stats. The No. 19 player in the PIF ATP Rankings awaits the winner of Tuesday’s popcorn match between defending champion Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard and #NextGenATP star Joao Fonseca.
In other action on Day 1 in Basel, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina recorded his 25th hard court victory of the season by beating Lorenzo Sonego 7-6(2), 6-4. The eighth-seeded Spaniard, who reached the finals in Acapulco and Washington, now has the seventh-most wins in the world going into 2025.
Davidovich Fokina will next face Jenson Brooksby, who needed just 67 minutes to get past Alexandre Muller 6-4, 6-3. Earlier, Jaume Munar eased past Swiss qualifier Remy Bertola 6-2, 6-4 and awaits a second-round meeting with last year’s finalist Ben Shelton or Kamil Majchrzak.
[NEWSLETTER FORM]
#Mensik #drives #fellow #NextGenATP #talent #Bernet #debut #Basel