Jakub Mensik prevents Djokovic from his 100th title, wins Miami Open for first ATP trophy

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Novak Djokovic faced a series of obstacles Sunday in the Miami Open final: a delay of more than 5 1/2 hours before the match, an eye infection and a slippery court due to high levels of humidity following the rain.

But the largest roadblock was the youth and power of 6-foot-4, 19-year-old phenom Jakub Mensik, who outdueled the 37-year-old Serbian 7-6 (4), 7-6 (4) to win his first ATP title.

Ranked 54th entering the tournament, the Czech Republic teenager plowed through Djokovic with poise and a stellar 130 mph serve. He collected 14 aces and got broken only once. Mensik bashed a service winner on match point and fell on his back.

"You’re the one I idolized when I was young," Mensik said to Djokovic during the ceremony after the match that lasted 2 hours, 3 minutes. “I started playing tennis because of you."

Mensik’s victory spoiled the party for Djokovic, who was seeking his 100th career title and a record seventh in the Miami Open. Djokovic will have to wait, while the teenager looks ready to join the elite.

“This is a joyous moment for him and his family — an unbelievable tournament, first of many," Djokovic said. “It hurts me to admit it, you were better. In the clutch moments you delivered the goods. For a young player like yourself, this is a great feature."

The crowd pulled hard for Djokovic, who hadn’t played here since 2019. More than three-quarters of the fans stuck around despite the massive delay, chanting “No-vak!" and singing his name across critical parts of the match.

Djokovic, far from a fan favorite here earlier in his career, saluted the fans, saying it was one of the warmest crowds he’s had ever.

But the men’s leader with 24 Grand Slam titles seemed compromised by his eye issue, with redness seen under the eyelid. Djokovic applied eyedrops during two changeovers in the first set. It was unclear if it affected his vision.

Afterward, Djokovic said he “really prefers not to talk about" his eye, but said “I didn’t feel my greatest on the court."

Djokovic called it “a weird day."

“It’s the same for both players," he added. “You have to accept the circumstances. I tried to make the most out of what I had or was facing but, yeah, it was quite different from any other day of the tournament for me."

During the set, he also slipped twice on the court. The humidity reached 90% after hours of rain disrupted the card. Sweating profusely, Djokovic asked the umpire for a bucket of sawdust to sprinkle on his wet grip.

Mensik had lost to Djokovic in a three-setter last October at the Shanghai Masters but the youngster said before the match he had played too nervously.

Mensik was playing his first ATP 1000 final. He was not quite 2 years old when Djokovic won his first Miami Open title in 2007.

Djokovic knew Mensik’s potential after inviting him to his camp in Belgrade to train when the prodigy was 16.

“He has the complete game. His serve is incredible, powerful, precise,” Djokovic said.

There was more fearlessness this time than in Shanghai. Mensik got up 3-0 with an early break but Djokovic broke back at 4-3, then held for 4-4 after fans chanted his name.

Mensik held for a 6-5 lead in a game that saw Djokovic take a tumble in the doubles alley chasing a drop shot. Mensik served it out with his seventh ace.

In the first-set tiebreak, Mensik charged ahead 5-0. Mensik executed a leaping backhand volley winner and Djokovic muffed a routine forehand drop shot into the net to fall behind 5-0. On set point, Mensik slugged an overhead smash for a winner.

The match was scheduled for 3 p.m. but the players didn’t take the court until 8:37 p.m. due to rain and organizers deciding on completing the women’s doubles final.

The South Florida rain began at 12:50 p.m. during the women’s doubles final pitting Mirra Andreeva and Diana Shnaider against Cristina Bucsa and Miyu Kato, with Andreeva and Shnaider leading 3-0 in the first set.

The women’s players returned to the court at 5:30 p.m. after the rain stopped and the courts were readied by court-drying machinery. But rain began minutes later before warmups and the umbrella-toting players left the court again.

The women returned to the court an hour later and resumed play at 6:50 p.m. Andreeva and Schnaider went the distance, prevailing in a third-set match tiebreaker 6-3, 6-7 (5), 10-2.

This story has corrected the spelling to Mensik. A previous version said Mensuk.

AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis

Novak Djokovic, of Serbia, plays a shot against Jakub Mensik, of Czech Republic, in the men's singles final match at the Miami Open tennis tournament, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Jakub Mensik, of Czech Repbulic, plays a shot to Novak Djokovic, of Serbia, in the men's singles final match at the Miami Open tennis tournament, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Jakub Mensik, of Czech Repbulic, plays a shot against Novak Djokovic, of Serbia, in the men's singles final match at the Miami Open tennis tournament, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Novak Djokovic, of Serbia, lies on the court after slipping and falling, as he plays Jakub Mensik, of Czech Repbulic, in the men's singles final match at the Miami Open tennis tournament, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Novak Djokovic, of Serbia, slips and falls as he plays Jakub Mensik, of Czech Repbulic, in the men's singles final match at the Miami Open tennis tournament, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Diana Shnaider, left, and Mirra Andreeva pose with the Butch Buchholz Championship Trophy after defeating Cristina Bucsa, of Spain, and Miyu Kato, of Japan, in the women's doubles final match at the Miami Open tennis tournament, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Fans watch the women's doubles final match between Cristina Bucsa, of Spain, and Miyu Kato, of Japan, top, and Diana Shnaider and Mirra Andreeva, at the Miami Open tennis tournament, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

People walk outside Hard Rock Stadium in front of a rainbow, as rain breaks after delaying play by many hours, at the Miami Open tennis tournament, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

People ride an escalator into Hard Rock Stadium in front of a rainbow, as rain breaks after delaying play by many hours, at the Miami Open tennis tournament, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

A crew dries the court after a break in rain that had delayed play by several hours, at the Miami Open tennis tournament, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

When NBC carried the Kentucky Derby for the first time in 2001, the broadcast lasted only 90 minutes.

On Saturday, when it carries the Run for the Roses for the 25th time, 90 minutes wouldn’t be enough for all the feature stories that will run leading up to post time.

NBC Sports will present 12 1/2 hours of coverage across two days on NBC, USA Network and Peacock. There will be five hours for Friday’s Kentucky Oaks on USA Network and Peacock. Saturday’s coverage begins on USA Network at noon ET before moving to NBC at 2:30 p.m. while Peacock will stream all 7 1/2 hours.

“So much has changed since we first started in 2001. At that time, we thought 90 minutes to cover a two-minute race. How are we going to fill all this time? Now we are still trying to figure out how we’re going to get this story in and that story in because there are so many great stories to tell,” said Donna Brothers, the only member of the broadcast team involved with all 25 Derbys on NBC.

NBC has done five hours of coverage on the main network on Derby Day since 2018. Sam Flood, the executive producer and president of NBC Sports Production, said the true evolution behind adding more hours while making the coverage appeal to a cross-section of viewers began after he produced his first Derby in 2006.

“I remember getting done with the show, which I think was two hours. I kept thinking, we can do so much more,” Flood said. “There are so many assets here that should be showcased, and that’s when we started blowing it out, adding more hours and slowly shifting more and more hours on to NBC and off the cable platforms.”

The expansion has also included the Kentucky Oaks. It started airing on Bravo in 2009 before moving to the NBC Sports Network and then USA Network.

The Derby broadcast has evolved into one of the most diverse sports events that NBC does yearly and is on par with the Olympics, which it carries once every two years, and the Super Bowl, which it has once every four years.

It also might be the only place where a viewer can see fashion, recipes from one of the hosts of Bravo’s “Top Chef,” and race predictions from NBC News chief data analyst Steve Kornacki.

Mike Tirico, the host of NBC’s coverage since 2017, said doing the Derby served as good preparation for hosting the Olympics as well as a stint as a guest host on the “Today” show last week.

“My time doing the Derby helped me to do the ‘Today’ show last week, not vice versa,” he said. “This show is so cool. It goes from speed figures to fascinators. It goes from betting to bourbon. We cover it all in the five hours with a great team of people who dive in and take their space and own it. We all build towards the race. The audience does the same.”

Tirico succeeded Tom Hammond as host. Hammond, a University of Kentucky graduate, was a guiding force around NBC’s early coverage and introducing the sport’s most prominent personalities to viewers.

Lindsay Schanzer, the supervising producer of NBC’s coverage, said one of the advantages of having nearly 4 1/2 hours leading up to post time at 6:57 p.m. ET is the chance to focus on the stories of the 20 horses that will line up in the starting gate.

Among the stories planned are the return of trainer Bob Baffert — who served a three-year suspension after Medina Spirit failed a drug test — 89-year-old trainer D. Wayne Lukas and Michael McCarthy, the trainer of prerace favorite Journalism, whose family was displaced from home in Southern California due to the wildfires.

Because of the many different topics in the broadcast, Schanzer has an interesting approach in how she books the coverage with what she calls a colors document, where each element of coverage has its own color.

“I like to look at it from a broad perspective to make sure there’s not too much of one color in one area, and every color is kind of represented across the show so that if you’re watching it, you’re getting a little bit of a taste of everything,” she said. “One color could be a fashion element, one could be Kornacki’s insights, one could be an interview with a horseman. I try to look at it in a holistic way like that.”

The approach has certainly worked. Last year’s broadcast averaged 16.7 million viewers, the largest Derby audience since 1989. That included an average minute audience of 714,000 streaming on Peacock.

Overall, 11 of the past 15 Derbys held in May have averaged at least 15 million.

“We’ve had all kinds of things happen (since 2001), and that’s what’s so unique about the sport, but specifically about the Derby,” said Jon Miller, NBC Sports president of acquisitions and partnerships. “You have 20 horses that come into that gate and long shots that can pull off the upset. You have favorites, you have great ownership stories, and you have legendary trainers. Who knows who is going to surprise this year? But that’s what’s great about it.”

AP horse racing: https://apnews.com/hub/horse-racing and Derby coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/kentucky-derby

Horses workout at Churchill Downs Wednesday, April 30, 2025, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)