The young Czech Jakub Mensik, 206th in the world, put an end to the American adventure of Frenchman Titouan Droguet (171st) whom he beat in four sets (3-6, 6-2, 7-6 (7/1) , 6-3), Wednesday in the second round of the US Open.
“I am very disappointed with my match today. I started pretty well, I felt like the other days, like I’ve been playing since I’ve been here, and I don’t know what happened. It started to get quite windy, I got out of tune, I got a little confused with my forehand. I feel like it went quickly. I didn’t manage to break him after the first set, without really understanding why. I couldn’t find my rhythm. But he had a very good match and he was very solid to finish, ”analyzed the 22-year-old Frenchman.
Neither player had yet played a Grand Slam main draw and both were from qualifying. It is therefore the Czech who will face the American Taylor Fritz (10th) or the Peruvian Juan Pablo Varillas on Friday, the day of his 18th birthday. Mensik became the youngest player to reach the third round of the US Open since Frenchman Fabrice Santoro in 1990. “The famous sentence I would have signed, it is there. But it’s always hard to lose. Especially since it was a great opportunity to go to the third round,” noted Droguet. “For now, I’m really disappointed, but I think I’ll be able to enjoy my week tomorrow,” he added.
Before coming to New York, Droguet had never played a game on the main circuit. In Flushing Meadows, after passing the three qualifying rounds with victories in particular against Cristian Garin and Tennys Sandgren, he obtained in the first round of the main draw a monumental victory against the 20th in the world, the Italian Lorenzo Musetti. “I will go back to playing Challengers and maybe play more ATP 250 qualifiers to try to progress. Tell me that I’m going to Australia in January, I’m already very happy. It will be a bonus if I manage (to integrate the main draw), but we must not believe we have arrived, we must try to continue to win matches. The path will be made … or not, ”concluded the Frenchman.
