Jakub Mensik beats Sinner in Doha for biggest career win | ATP Tour

Doha

Mencic beats Sinner in Doha for biggest career win

The 20-year-old Czech player will face Fiers semi-finals in Qatar

February 19, 2026

Jakub Mensik has plenty of experience in pulling off upsets at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open. However, the 20-year-old reached new heights at the ATP 500 on Thursday, shocking world number two Jannik Sinner with a stunning performance in the quarter-finals.

Mencic defeated Sinner 7-6(3), 2-6, 6-3 for the biggest win of his career in the PIF ATP rankings. Two years ago, the Czech scored his first top-five win with a breakthrough victory over Andrei Rublev in the championship match in Doha. On Thursday night, he played a decider in his first Lexus ATP Head2Head match against Sinner and a semi-final against Arthur Fils.

Worth paying tribute🫡

2024 Finalists @mensik_jakub_ Gets his first top 3 win @khadatennis | #QADAExxonMobilOpen pic.twitter.com/ZW36RRgFT9

— ATP Tour (@atptour) February 19, 2026

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Mencic said when asked about winning. “I knew what Jannik was capable of before the game. A great guy, a great champion. What he has done in his young career is already impressive, so I knew it was going to be a tough game. But even with that thought, I came to the game to win and actually have a winning mentality.

“My serve was pretty good, even if things started to slow down in the evening. It was a very tough mental battle. After the second set, when my energy dropped a little bit, I was happy that I came back after going to the bathroom, and from the third set on, I started serving again. I’m happy with my performance today.”

Mencik defeated Sinner with his relentless serving performance. He won 82% (49/60) of his points after his first serve, according to Infosys ATP Statistics, and he recovered impressively in the third set after his level dipped midway through the match.

The Czech shook off early trouble at 0/40 in the quarter-finals and saved four break points in the third game to hold serve. With serve firing, Mencik didn’t face another break point in the set and took five of the final seven points in the tiebreak to seal the victory with a powerful forehand that left Sinner helpless.

Sinner had a strong reaction to losing the first set in her Doha debut. He quickly equalized the score, and with the help of Mensik, he rewritten the score to 2-2 in four consecutive games. The Czech failed to maintain the level of the first set at the penalty line and produced three double faults, two of which were broken in the sixth game.

Yet Sinner could do little to counter Mencic’s stellar performance. Whenever given the chance to dictate, the sixth seed continued to hit the ball hard, breaking in the opening and closing games of the decider to complete a famous two-hour, 12-minute victory. The Czech, who is chasing a second ATP Tour title in 2026 after winning the title in Auckland in the first week of the year, calmly walked to the net to hug Sinner after the job was done.

Mencik, the 2025 Miami champion, now has a 4-2 record against Top 5 opponents, including wins against ATP No. 1 club member Novak Djokovic and Sinner, who has moved up three spots to No. 13 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings thanks to his performance in Doha so far. He will reach his second final in the Qatari capital on Friday against 21-year-old Fiers.

Frenchman Fiers, who has played just two matches in the past eight months due to a back injury, returned to action earlier this month and defeated Jiri Lehka 6-3, 6-3 to reach his first tour-level semifinals since April last year.

“I really didn’t know I was going to play that well and that fast,” Fiers said at the postgame press conference. “From six to eight months out, you don’t know what’s going to happen when you come back from the injury. So you really don’t know what’s going to happen.

“[I’m] I’m very happy with the way I’m playing right now. It’s not my best tennis result so far, but we’re getting there. I just have to play every game, hit a lot of balls, play a lot of matches, play a lot of sets, get points, get ready again and get better and better. ”