With the Next Gen ATP Finals underway, tennis fans have an opportunity to appreciate the rising stars on tour. Czech youngster Jakub Mensik has been a standout this season, and American colleague Christopher Eubanks highlighted Mensik’s underrated serve.

Eight of the best young players under 22 on the ATP Tour compete at the end of the season at at the Next Gen ATP Finals, which is being hosted in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia this year. The list includes the likes of Frenchman Arthur Fils, who has already won a main draw title this year, and China’s Juncheng Shang, who finished runner-up at his home event a few months ago.

Eubanks in awe of Mensik’s serve

On the latest episode of the Tennis Channel Live Podcast, Eubanks and co-host Jason Goodall discussed which of the eight competitors in Jeddah had the best serve.

“I am going to go with [Jakub] Mensik,” said Eubanks. “I saw his serve first hand, he has an absolute bomb, he can hit mid to high 130’s with relative consistency.
“I think he has the variety because the slice serve for him is so big it opens up the flat serves, it opens up the t and the deuce, the wide and the ads. As a returner sometimes you have to lean a little bit to get any type of clue but he can hit all the spots.”

Goodall was in agreement with Eubanks, going as far as comparing Mensik’s serve to that of tennis legend, Roger Federer.

“When he built up a nice rhythm on serve you could see he was holding serve really quickly,” added Goodall. “It was Roger Federer like, under 60 seconds, hold after hold after hold. That gives him an opportunity to build up momentum, create confidence within matches, and can really hurt opponents.”