We Got Next(Gen), Part II
Fonseca and Menšík's performances at AO2025
The 2025 Australian Open was a Debutante Ball of sorts for the 2024 NextGen cohort, with several notable upsets (Fonseca, Menšík), and two second week appearances (Michelsen, Tien). So how did the NextGen do? We won’t be covering every NextGen player, so apologies in advance to Jerry Shang (who had to retire from his first round match), Arthur Fils (who’s already firmly in the top 25), Nishesh Basavareddy (who put up a good fight against Djokovic), and Luca Van Assche (who did not take part in this year’s AO).
In Part II, we cover Joao Fonseca and Jakub Menšík
The Explosive Possibilities of Joao Fonseca
Live Ranking (as of Feb 4th): 96
AO25 Performance: R2 (lost to Sonego in 5)
Notable Tournament Wins: (9) Rublev
Joao Fonseca wasn’t flying under the radar, even before the Australian Open. He won the NextGen tournament, he already had an ATP 500 Quarterfinal appearance under his belt, and he’s an ON sponsored athlete at 18, for god’s sake. Serious tennis fans knew that it was only a matter of time before he notched first signature win.
Against Top 10 mainstay Andrey Rublev, Fonseca showed all of the tools and talents that make tennis fans project him to join Sinner and Alcaraz as the next “Big 3”.
Rublev’s strength is his incredible forehand, and most players who go toe-to-toe with him on that wing end up on the losing end. Not Fonseca, who was able to get the edge on Forehand-to-Forehand exchanges all match long:
Fonseca’s forehand is so powerful that even when Rublev is well positioned to get to the ball, he can’t time his contact properly, or just plain can’t get to it:
Fonseca’s ability to attack Rublev’s forehand also opens up possibilities for him to hit his forehand to Rublev’s backhand. Any time Fonseca is on the attack, Rublev has to respect the fact that Fonseca can hit the ball to either wing. This, combined with Fonseca’s awesome power, means that Fonseca can hit aggressively to huge targets and stay on offense. In the point below, Fonseca’s forehand wrong-foots Rublev slightly (he split steps ever so slightly to his forehand), but the ball lands nowhere near the baseline or the sideline (it’s honestly closer to the service line) and still gets past Rublev.
Fonseca’s backhand also packs a huge punch as well. Smarter minds than me have commented on its technical prowess, but the most impressive part is his versatility on the backhand wing. Here, Fonseca neutralizes a fairly aggressive return from Rublev with his backhand, and on his next backhand he is ripping it cross-court for a winner.
Here is Fonseca so unfazed by Rublev’s forehand that he is attacking Rublev’s forehand with his own backhand. This feels like insanity until you see how effective it is. And again: Fonseca is hitting to HUGE targets, because his power means he does not have to paint the lines in order to hurt his opponent.
The big question for Fonseca is how quickly we can see him level up his fitness and be durable enough for the Best of 5 Sets format in Majors. Another question is how he deals with craftier players who take time away from him rather than exchange from the baseline. Both of these came up in his Second Round loss, as it was clear that Fonseca’s legs were not as explosive as they were in the First Round (noticeably worse 1st serve percentage and net points percentage), and Sonego was able to catch Fonseca off guard with a healthy diet of net rushing (74% on 42 attempts) and drop shots (7 drop shot winners). That being said, notice I wrote “how quickly” and not “If”, because everything about Fonseca’s game so far suggests success on the ATP tour is coming, the only question is when.
Jakub Menšík, Five-Tool Player
Live Ranking (as of Feb 4th): 44
AO25 Performance: R3 (lost to Davidovich Fokina in 5)
Notable Tournament Wins: (6) Ruud
Jakub Menšík seemingly has every hard skill and asset you would want in a promising tennis pro. The obvious qualities: powerful groundstrokes from both the forehand and backhand wing, a serve that regularly touches 140mph, swift movement in and out of corners, height (6’4). The less obvious, but nonetheless fantastic bonuses: a willingness to come to net and play an all-court game, proficiency with touch and off-speed shots like slices and drop shots. With these set of skills, it’s easy to see why he’s the youngest active player in the ATP Top 50.
It’s also easy to rationalize how, with his skillset, he was able to beat Casper Ruud in the Second Round of the Australian Open. Casper Ruud is a great whose forehand, proficiency on slower surfaces (i.e. Clay), and general industriousness has kept him in and around the top 10 over the last few years. He likes to win by having enough time to run around to hit his forehand and batter his opponent’s backhand all match long. On a faster court, against an opponent in Menšík who can weather the storm on the backhand wing and send some back the other way, that game plan doesn’t work too well.
Here, Menšík neutralizes a Ruud 1st serve, and then pushes Ruud deeper and wider with every successive cross-court backhand. Ruud eventually gives up a short forehand as he hits it running backwards, which gives Menšík the opportunity to attack.
Ruud realizes that this is probably not a winning pattern, so he tries to get out of the ad-court exchanges almost immediately by going down the line with his backhand. This leads to either A) an error, or B) a fairly retrievable forehand for Menšík, as Ruud’s backhand is more spinny than penetrating.
Menšík’s advantage in baseline exchanges forced Ruud to up the risk a lot more, which resulted in him going for too much, or going for it too early. As each set went on, the share of points ending within 0-4 shots increased (56%/65%/76%/76%). A large part of that was due to Menšík’s serving, but some of it was also a result of Ruud feeling like he needed to end the point with his forehand:
Not just content to trade behind the baseline, Menšík was enthusiastic about coming to the net and finishing points there as well, winning 68% (25/37) of his net points, and his net points won contributing to 20% of his total points won. Here he shows great touch with a slice approach, and the soft hands to redirect the passing shot to a drop volley winner.
The serve is a huge weapon for Menšík, and it presented a lot of issues for Ruud. According to AO’s own stat tracking, Menšík hit 22 Aces and got 19 return errors, meaning he won 41 points off his serve without having to hit an additional shot (55% of his 74 service points won, and 38% of his 108 total service points played). On second serve, he was able to win 65% of points, which far outpaces his 52-week average of 47.7%, suggesting significant over-performance (though Ruud himself ranks only 34th in 2nd Serve return points won, at 50.6%, so he wasn’t a huge threat to punish Menšík).
On return, Menšík was able to apply pressure, especially on Ruud’s second serve, where Menšík won 52% of the points. Menšík’s timing on the backhand is exceptional, which meant we saw him able to force an error off Ruud’s Plus-One:
And earn himself an easy Return Plus-One:
And straight up hit past Ruud on the return:
It’s clear that Menšík has shown all the talent of a player who will eventually make deep runs at Majors, but in his next match against the talented but occasionally confounding Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (ADF), Menšík showed he still has room for improvement.
Chief among this is his forehand, which lacks the venom and versatility of his backhand. According to Tennis Insights, Menšík’s percentage of Forehands in the court was about 83.5%, and his winner rate was about 6%, which puts him in the same company as Mackenzie McDonald, Tommy Paul, and Borna Coric. Not exactly who you think about when you think “elite forehands”. For reference, Jannik Sinner’s In %/Winner Rate split was 85%/8.5%, and Carlos Alcaraz’s was 83.5%/9.5%, meaning they were keeping the ball in the court as often as Menšík, but hitting winners way more often.
Within the context of his loss to ADF, we saw ADF look to the Menšík forehand when he needed a point. At 3:5 in the 3rd set, ADF is down 0:40. Miraculously, he puts up a fight and gets the game to multiple deuces before getting broken, here’s how he does it:
0:40 - ADF First Serve down the T to Menšík’s forehand. Serve unreturned, ADF Wins.
15:40 - ADF Second Serve to Menšík’s forehand. Mid-length rally. ADF Wins.
30:40 - ADF First Serve down the T to Menšík’s forehand. Serve unreturned, ADF Wins.
40:40 - ADF first serve wide to Menšík’s forehand. Serve unreturned. ADF Wins.
AD:40 - ADF first serve wide to Menšík’s backhand. Mid-length rally. ADF Loses.
40:40 - ADF first serve to Menšík’s backhand. Mid-length rally. ADF Loses
40:AD - ADF first serve to Menšík’s forehand. ADF approaches to net. ADF Wins.
40:40 - ADF first serve to Menšík’s forehand. ADF approaches to net but Menšík hits a ridiculous passing shot at ADF’s feet that he half-volleys into the net. ADF Loses.
40:AD - ADF first serve to Menšík’s forehand. ADF is on the attack but eventually dumps a down-the-line forehand into the net. ADF Loses.
That’s 7 points where ADF serves to Menšík’s forehand, and he wins 5 of them. Whenever Menšík has to hit a forehand return, ADF was able to go on the attack:
Or he would have trouble returning the serve:
In both the points where ADF serves to Menšík’s backhand, he’s able to neutralize the point and eventually win it after rallying. Menšík is able to quickly move his body out of the way on the serve, and his compact backhand allows him to do that and still make great contact for a return.
Here, Menšík is able to make a first serve return and get an advantage right away (which is uncommon when returning first serves).
In rally situations, Menšík’s forehand is a little tentative, especially in key points. In this point, Menšík gets a second serve return to his forehand, which he hits with quality. However, in the ensuing cross-court exchange, he drops two forehands short (on or before the service line), pushing him further back behind the baseline and allowing ADF to catch him with a drop shot.
On the topic of key points, it seems like Menšík is still finding the right balance of aggression and consistency in these moments, too often opting to be overly conservative, with flashes of too much aggression.
He had trouble finding his first serve, and did not seem comfortable with his second serve on key points, hitting it significantly slower than other points of the match. At 6:5, 30:0 in the 3rd set, two points from winning the match, Menšík misses his first serve, and then double faults with a 132km/h second serve, about 20 km/h slower than his average second serve throughout the match. At 30:15, he has to hit another second serve, this time even slower at 128km/h. He compounds this with some questionable decision making, playing very conservatively, and then hitting a (very good) drop shot that he follows up to the net, before sailing a volley well past the baseline.
He loses the point at 30:30 on a very tentative forehand falling backwards, before finally losing the game at 30:40, with a 131 km/h second serve, and an overly aggressive forehand.
In the 3rd set tiebreak, serving at 5:5, he hits another off-speed second serve at 138 km/h, and seems content to just get the ball back to the other side before ADF gifts a backhand error:
On his two match points, Menšík reverted to being ultra conservative once more, massively decelerating on a backhand that he could have taken for an offensive shot on the first match point, and serving a 128 km/h second serve on the second match point. At 7:7 in the tiebreaker, he misses his first serve again and hits a second serve at 135km/h. That would be the closest he gets to winning the match again, as ADF closes out the third set and eventually comes back to win in the fifth.
Having to close out a Best of 5 match is a canon event for all young players on the ATP tour, and Menšík’s experience proves how different these moments must feel compared to your standard ATP tour match. That being said, he has certainly shown the ability to keep putting himself in these high-stakes situations, so we will have plenty of opportunities to see how he can internalize these early lessons.
The next few months of the tournament calendar are not kind to Menšík, with a steady diet of clay courts (on which he is an unknown quantity), and slow hard courts (which blunt his first serve effectiveness), so we may not have a lot to gauge his progress on until we get to the grass courts and the summer hard court swing, where he should be able to make significant strides up the rankings.