‘He's very lucky' – Tennis star's racquet almost flies into Queen's Club spectator in shocking scenes
A TENNIS star was lucky not to injure a fan at Queen's after a freak incident.
Jakub Mensik took on Roberto Bautista Agut in the last 16 in West London on Wednesday.
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Despite taking the first set, the No8 seed - who beat Cameron Norrie in round one - suffered a shock defeat.
And the 19-year-old's frustrations were clear to see when he netted a backhand on the run.
Mensik swatted his tennis racquet down towards the grass court - not down into the turf.
But as his arm swung through, the handle slipped from his grasp and flew out.
The racquet then bounced down into the grass and over the backboards into the front rows of the stand behind the Andy Murray Arena court.
Thankfully, the seats directly behind Mensik were vacant and therefore the racquet did not strike a spectator.
Instead, it was passed back by over the hoardings by a bloke in the crowd.
Had the racquet hit someone, Mensik would have almost certainly been defaulted - even though it would be an accident.
BBC Sport commentator John Lloyd said: "Uh oh, uh oh.
"That could have caused injury, there.
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"He didn't mean it - it slipped out of his hands on to the court.
"That could have hit the lady right in the third row and that would have been an automatic default.
"He's very lucky, there."
Mensik was handed a code violation for unsportsmanlike behaviour by British umpire James Keothavong.
Incredibly, it is not the first time Mensik has avoided being disqualified in very similar fashion.
At the 2024 Miami Open, he threw his racquet in anger and only just avoided hurtling the frame into a ballboy in "scary" scenes.
A year later, Mensik announced himself on the world stage by beating Novak Djokovic in the 2025 Miami Open final, his maiden ATP Tour crown and denying the Serbian his 100th career title.
And in another quirk, Mensik planned to pull out of the Miami Masters event because he was unwell before playing his first-round match... against Bautista Agut.
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Those are the years where, if I could go back in time, that would be the time I would go back to.' Throughout the two-hour event, Sir Andy is self-effacing and the very model of understated charm. His knighthood, he said, is 'not something I think about'. He never dreamed of great tennis success, he 'just wanted to be good enough to play at the major events. I never thought I was going to end up winning them'. Sometimes the public perception of Murray caused him real pain, the interest in his talents beginning when he was 15. As his success grew, so did media attention. It 'changed massively, overnight, and it was initially exciting and fun to do press conferences and have people taking pictures of you,' he said. 'And it's nice, but you're not properly prepared for it. 'The media in Great Britain can be pretty harsh and the mood changes fast. At first you're a breath of fresh air, who speaks his mind, to being a moody teenager. 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'It always helped me through the boys' journeys that I was a coach, as well as obviously being a parent, because I was always able to look at a match analytically and look for the things that could be improved. 'So I wasn't just entirely caught up in the emotion of it, but when I saw how much the loss in 2012 (at Wimbledon) affected Andy and watching him give the speech on court when he lost, they were really, really difficult moments. 'People forget that everything is relatively easy when you win, but dealing with the defeats and the disappointments is incredibly tough, not just for the player, but for everybody around the player.' Andy revealed there was a time when he wished the 'When are you going to win Wimbledon?' questions would stop. Instead it became 'Are you going to win again?' after his 2013 triumph. Asked if he was bothered about Djokovic, Roger Federder and Rafael Nadal being termed as the Big Three during his era, he was characteristically modest. 'It's not something I lose any sleep over at night,' he said. 'I'm fully aware that those guys, what they've achieved is far greater than anything I've done. 'And I would never claim to be on the same level as them...' It's hard to hear the end of his answer as the audience calls out 'You are, yes you are'. Sir Andy is candid about the emotional side of the game and brutally honest about his physical trials. Hip problems started when he was 21 and he went to see a specialist after the Australian Open. Sir Andy was told that, because of the particular shape of his hips, they might cause him problems later in his career. He was offered an operation to potentially help with the issues - but it held no guarantees so he turned it down. It was only in 2016, after the Olympics, when the hip started to become a problem in matches. At the end of 2016, he lost from two sets to one up in the US Open quarter-finals, and lost from two sets to one up in the Davis Cup against Juan Martin del Potro. 'At the end of these matches, the long matches, I was really struggling to use my right leg properly,' he said. In January 2018, Murray had his first hip operation with the surgeon he had initially seen in Australia. By this point there was no cartilage left in his hip, just bone rubbing on bone. Before a match at Wimbledon in 2017, during warm up running drills, Murray was in so much pain he cried. To get him through the match he took a codeine tablet for the first time. 'I had never had one before,' he said. 'And I was totally spaced out at the beginning of that match. 'Usually I'm quite nervous but I just remember looking around thinking: 'What's going on out here'?' Cotter joked: 'Usually as commentators we think we know what's going on. Now, if I could go back in time, I'd say he was clearly off his t*ts.' When Murray had revealed that his hip caused him so much pain he would cry at night, one commentator in the US remarked how 'beautiful' it was that the Scot was so emotional about tennis. 'No,' he said, 'I was in so much pain I couldn't sleep at night.' He had lost sensation in his right leg and it emerged he had a cyst that was pushing on his spinal cord. Due to have surgery right before Wimbledon, he knew he was going to retire after the Olympics but was worried he wouldn't make it. Now, he has no such fears. 'Honestly, I don't miss tennis at all,' he said. 'And that was something I was really worried about. 'But I don't miss hitting a tennis ball. I'm happy just doing stuff with my kids and my family, just doing normal stuff.' The evening ends with a photo reel of family pictures. In one, it is Halloween and Sir Andy is dressed as a clown. None of the other parents are dressed up. 'I got properly stitched up with that,' he said. His children, he added, stopped their tennis lessons because 'they just weren't very good at it'. But, he is sanguine about this, as he is with so much else. Murray just wants them to be happy and, after all the ups and downs of professional life, he seems truly happy himself. As a theatre audience in Glasgow can testify.
