“He cannot take Mensik as an example”: Patrick Mouratoglou disagrees with Alexander Bublik on top-50 level

Patrick Mouratoglou shared a video on social media in which he disagreed with the recent statements of Alexander Bublik during his match against Jakub Mensik. The 27-year-old had a peculiar exchange with the chair umpire, comparing the level of the top-50 players five years ago.

The talented Kazakh reached the round of 16 of the Madrid Open – defeating opponents such as the 2024 Canadian Open champion Alexei Popyrin and the Madrid defending champion Andrey Rublev. However, he was defeated by the 19-year-old Czech star by a convincing 3-6, 2-6.

During a changeover, after suffering a break in the third set, Bublik laughed ironically at being outplayed by Mensik. While sitting on his bench during the break, the Kazakh was caught on camera commenting to the chair umpire: “Remember when tennis was easy? Like, five years ago, it was super easy to play tennis.”

The video of the world No. 76 went viral on social media and received a response from Naomi Osaka's current coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, who has previously worked with players like Simona Halep and Holger Rune, among others. “As much as I love Bublik, I cannot agree with him. For me, it’s more that he was losing, he was a bit emotional in his own way, which is to be funny and say a bit crazy things. He said the top-50 is so much stronger now than five years ago. I don’t think so.”

“He cannot take Mensik as an example. Mensik is not top ten yet because he’s coming from far, and he’s rising fast in the rankings, and it takes time to reach the top ten, but don’t forget that he won a Masters 1000 in Miami just a few weeks ago, beating Novak [Djokovic] in the final, so his level is much higher than his ranking.

Mensik was the big surprise at the Miami Open, taking the title by defeating opponents like Jack Draper and Taylor Fritz, in addition to Djokovic in a remarkable final. This week at the Madrid Open, he reached the quarterfinals, falling to Argentine Francisco Cerundolo.

The Czech has been competing in ATP-level tournaments for just over a year and has only recently achieved his breakthrough in the last few months. This Monday, he will reach his best ranking so far as world No. 21. “That’s why he feels ‘oh this guy is ranked that level but he plays top-ten’, which is probably true. On hard court for sure and on clay, if not on clay yet, probably soon,” the French coach added.

“So he’s playing a guy whose ranking is lower than his real level. So that’s why he has that feeling, but I don’t think what feeling is true in general in the top-50. I think the level is extremely high, any player is in danger any round, but I think it was the case already five years ago,” he concluded.