“First of many,” Jakub Mensik wrote on the camera lens after his victory at the Miami Open on Sunday. The Czech had never won a tournament at ATP level before this week. Now he is a Masters 1000 champion.
On the other side of the net on a swelteringly humid night was a man he had idolised since his childhood, who had inspired him to take up tennis, who won his first title on the tour when Mensik was only 10 months old. As the 19-year-old collapsed on court, overwhelmed with emotion, it was hard not to think that the story had come full circle: the student had outgrown the master.
