Jakub Mensik, Joao Fonseca, Rafael Jodar, Victoria Mboko & more: tennis' next generation at the 2026 grass court season

Recent results, especially at Roland Garros, suggest we could be witnessing the rise of the sport’s future champions. One thing is certain: there is plenty to be excited about heading into the 2026 grass court season and beyond.

On the men’s side, players are emerging who could challenge Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz for years to come, while in the women’s game, several teenage stars are already in the top 20 and targeting the sport’s biggest prizes.

With many of the game’s emerging stars already confirmed for the HSBC Championships, the Lexus Eastbourne Open and other events this summer, here’s what to look out for in the coming weeks.

Mensik, Joint & Eala contenders for the biggest titles

Beyond the teenage stars emerging as some of the top players in the world, several other young players will be among the favourites for major silverware during the grass-court season.

20-year-old Jakub Mensik is another player coming off the back of a breakthrough campaign at Roland Garros where he reached a career-first Grand Slam semi-final.

Despite winning the Miami Open, Mensik's results in Paris feel like his announcement as a contender to break the dominance at the top of the men's game. 

The young Czech - who is set to break into the top 10 for the first time - is now building consistency and momentum at the biggest tournaments and showed his quality in wins over Alex de Minaur, Andrey Rublev and Joao Fonseca in Paris. Watch out for him as a title contender at the HSBC Championships.

On the WTA Tour, last year’s Lexus Eastbourne Open finalists Maya Joint and Alexandra Eala have already shown their quality on grass despite limited experience.

20-year-old Joint will aim to retain her title on the south coast and also compete at the Lexus Nottingham Open, while Eala is the top seed in Birmingham and will play at The Queen’s Club for the first time.

Mboko & Jovic target grass court silverware

Canadian Victoria Mboko and American Iva Jovic are two of the players leading the next wave on the WTA Tour right now, and both are set to feature across the British grass-court season this year.

Mboko, who broke into the top 10 this year and reached finals in Adelaide, Qatar and Strasbourg, will be contesting her first full grass-court season, despite having qualified for Wimbledon last year.

For Jovic, however, there have already been strong signs that the 18-year-old will be a force on grass. Last year, she won her first WTA 125 title at the Lexus Ilkley Open, which appeared to act as a springboard for the rest of her season.

It will be interesting to see how both players fare against some of the best in the world on grass this summer.

At The Queen’s Club, they could come up against former Wimbledon champion and world No.2 Elena Rybakina, last year’s HSBC Championships and Wimbledon runner-up Amanda Anisimova, or former Eastbourne and Berlin champion Belinda Bencic.

Jovic is also confirmed for the Lexus Nottingham Open WTA 250 event this year and is likely to be the top seed in the tournament.

Fonseca & Jodar aim to continue Roland Garros success

One of the biggest stories to emerge from Roland Garros this year has been the breakthrough of teenage stars Fonseca and Rafael Jodar.

The pair have taken very different routes to this point. Fonseca has long been touted as one of the young players most capable of competing for Grand Slam titles alongside Sinner and Alcaraz, but before Paris he had yet to produce a real standout run at a major.

The Brazilian changed that by knocking out 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic in five sets before producing a breakthrough run at the tournament.

Meanwhile, Jodar has been one of the biggest risers of the clay court swing. The 19-year-old Spaniard, who until recently was playing in the US college system, won his first ATP title in Marrakech in April and has since reached the semi-finals in Barcelona and the quarter-finals in Madrid and Rome.

A quarter-final run on his Roland Garros debut was a major statement, underlined by his powerful ball-striking.

It is no wonder both players head into the grass court season as ones to watch, with Jodar set to play at both the HSBC Championships and the Lexus Eastbourne Open, and Fonseca in the Eastbourne line-up.

Both have limited experience on grass, with this being Jodar’s first summer on the surface ahead of his Wimbledon debut, but each brings an exciting brand of tennis that will get fans on their feet.

Could they both be outside bets for titles this grass court season?

British players hope to take next step

It’s an exciting period for British fans as well, with three rising stars in Mika Stojsavljevic, Mimi Xu and Hannah Klugman poised to take the next step on the WTA Tour.

2024 junior US Open champion Stojsavljevic has shown impressive signs of late, particularly in her debut Billie Jean King Cup victory against Australia, that she can already cause problems for top-level players.

She made a winning start on the grass reaching the quarter-finals at Birmingham - her best result at WTA 125 level.

Xu has already won high-level ITF titles on home soil, including the Lexus Wrexham Open last year, and made the quarter-finals in Birmingham. She has had a spell out with injury, but her game style is well suited to grass.

Klugman reached junior world No.2 and made the junior Roland Garros final last year, alongside a debut grass-court season on the pro tour. The 17-year-old has been making encouraging progress on the ITF Tour and will relish the opportunity to test herself against higher-ranked opponents this summer.