A good number of players who took the necessary detour required to represent their various countries at recently concluded summer Olympics on the Parisian clay courts at Roland Garros have had to contend with the possibility of having a poor warm up to the final Slam of the season or none at all–as we saw a good number of them take early loses in Canada and Cincinnati. This trend has been more evident for none more than Felix Auger-Aliassime, who lost in the first round of his home Masters 1000 tournament in Montreal, a round of 16 finish in Cincinnati and has just been dumped out of the first round of the US Open by Jakub Mensik, who hasn’t had a strong showing himself in months outside ATP 250 events.
Whilst Jakub Mensik remains one of the hot prospects on the come up on the men’s tour, and would have no doubt troubled just about anyone with his style of play, a straight sets win over Felix Auger-Aliassime wouldn’t have been on anyone’s radar given both of their performances over the last few months. Auger-Aliassime looked to have been back to his dominant best, blitzing to the finals in Madrid and narrowly losing to Andrey Rublev. He followed that up with a Round of 16 finish at the French Open, losing to the eventual champion Carlos Alcaraz. An unremarkable showing at Wimbledon followed with a five sets loss to Thanasi Kokkinakis in round one followed. A redemptive trip to Paris where he won four matches on the bounce soon followed but Alcaraz would still stand in his way.
Overall, Felix Auger-Aliassime’s season has been better than the level he has produced since the end of the 2022 season. The danger moving forward is whether or not he would be able to maintain the level that has seen him climb back into the top 20 in the rankings or whether he would slip back into another bout of poor performances that would see him drop farther down from the top of men’s tennis.
With no meaningful points to defend from here on out until the end of the season, the goal for the Canadian should be how to get back to winning ways. With the indoors on the horizon, Felix Auger-Aliassime has his game cut out for him. He can beat just about anybody, whether or not can get to that level is yet to be seen.
This takes nothing away from the phenomenal tennis on display by Jakub Mensik. He hit 25 winners to 15 unforced errors, compared to Auger-Aliassime’s 36 unforced errors to 27 winners. Just maybe no one was beating Mensik today.
Main Photo Credit: Mike Frey USA Today
