The revelation reaches the Mutua de Madrid & more related news here

Having just turned 19, Rafa Jódar has become the great revelation of Spanish tennis and, incidentally, one of the names that the circuit is beginning to take into account. It is not a whimsical label: Nobody has had more victories than him so far this season. In a sport that measures talent in results, his is already important. The irruption has some vertigo, but also its logic. Trained at the Chamartín Tennis Club, between dirt courts and Sunday afternoons looking at the Caja Mágica, Jódar has built his tennis shoes based on versatility. He doesn’t have a favorite surface. The speed of the court does not keep him awake because what obsesses him is something else: understanding what happens on the court, resolving when the game goes wrong, holding on when you have to hold on. “Knowing how to adapt is what makes you a good playerr”, he recently told MARCA, without artifice.

A little over a year ago he combined studies at the University of Virginia with his first steps in professional tennis. Today he competes with the best. He won in Marrakech after months without stepping on clay, he chained results and reached the quarterfinals in Barcelona with a naturalness that astonishes outsiders more than himself.. Because Jódar doesn’t flinch. Neither for sharing victory statistics with Jannik Sinner nor for reaching the top of the national ranking. It goes game by game, without further ado.

with head

That is perhaps his greatest virtue: his head. Does not get lost in the noise, does not chase the ranking, It protects itself from overexposure. He clings to his own -family, lifelong friends, the same ones with whom they celebrated their first ATP title when they returned home- and repeats routines like someone who takes care of a ritual.

Eat Spanish food, keep your feet on the ground. In a sport as mental as tennis, that is not a minor detail. Now he arrives at the Mutua Madrid Open. The same tournament that he visited as a child as a fan, looking with open eyes at what he himself stars in today.. Which, in part, means confirmation that everything has happened very quickly and, at the same time, that it is ready. Madrid is not too big for him. Rather, it seems like the next step of a boy who doesn’t run, but doesn’t slow down either. The future no longer waits. He’s playing at home.

Consolidation

The Mutua Madrid Open has established itself as one of the most important tournaments on the ATP and WTA calendar. The tournament is imminently approaching its 25th editionwhose first competition marked a before and after in national tennis.

Since then, every year it has seen the best rackets on the planet win on its courts.. And it has always done so at the forefront of the sport, as a true benchmark of innovation on the ATP circuit.