Novak Djokovic and Jakub Mensik expose gaping flaw in Joao Fonseca’s game after French Open run

Richie Mills 03 Jun 2026 8:00 PM

Jakub Mensik celebrates, while Joao Fonseca exits the French Open

Joao Fonseca is clearly a big star of the future, if not already. But there are parts of his game that still need ironing out.

That is understandable; after all, he is only 19. And the Brazilian did reach his first Grand Slam quarter-final, beating Novak Djokovic and Casper Ruud before losing in straight sets to Jakub Mensik at this year’s French Open.

Much is made of his booming forehand and how clutch he was in the big moments against the 24-time major winner and the two-time Roland Garros runner-up.

But in the teenager’s 6-4 6-3 7-6 (7-3) defeat to 20-year-old Mensik on Tuesday, the big Czech highlighted some flaws in the 28th seed’s game.

Mensik only won six more points, chalked up one more unforced error (39 vs 38), and was 5/21 on break points, versus Fonseca’s 2/5.

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However, the biggest difference was on the serve and the return. The No 26 seed won 83% of his first serve points. Incidentally, he also won 38 out of 51 points at the net.

On the flip side, Fonseca won 61% of his first serves and 58% of his second serves. To make matters worse for the youngster, Mensik was serving at 72% and 77% for first serves in for the opening two sets.

And according to tennis content creator Gill Gross, Fonseca‘s serve was “manhandled”, as Mensik exposed some of his poor spot serving – something Djokovic did in the first two sets of their five-setter in round three.

He said on his YouTube channel, “Credit to Mensik for being so incredibly punishing every time Fonseca missed [his] spots. This was also the main problem that Fonseca ran into in the [first] couple of sets against Djokovic.

“Too many times where Novak was able to blast first serve returns hard and deep, making it so that Fonseca was on his back foot right away in his serve points.

“That should not happen on your first serve points as often as it did. Look at Fonseca’s serve numbers. He won 61% of his first serve points, 58% of his second serve points.

“What does that tell you? Only 3% better? It told you his first serve was a nothing. Mensik manhandled it, right? I will say Fonseca tends to come up with his best first serves with his back against the wall on huge points when he needs it.

“And that’s a good quality. I’m not going to spin that as a bad thing. Of course, that’s a good thing. At the same time, he does not have a consistently precise serve.”

Like any rising star, Fonseca will need to improve his fitness, movement, shot selection, serving and more. Despite that, the young Brazilian is still being tipped as a future Grand Slam winner.

The fact that he beat Djokovic from two sets down and backed that up with a win over Ruud shows you how much pedigree he has. And if he puts it all together, Fonseca will be a very difficult player to stop.

Meanwhile, Mensik will face Alexander Zverev in the semi-finals on Friday.