Tennis players typically sign their initials or write motivational quotes, personal jokes or smiley faces on the camera lens after matches.
World No.1 Jannik Sinner took a different path after his Madrid Masters quarter-final last month. The Italian superstar is on a historic run – becoming the first player to win five Masters titles in a row – and is routinely dispatching hapless opponents.
Sinner also won on this occasion, but acknowledged it was different. “What a player,” he wrote, after surviving Spain’s new teenage sensation, Rafael Jodar.
The note qualified as Sinner’s stamp of approval, even if he was reluctant to earmark him as part of a potential new “Big Four”, alongside him, Carlos Alcaraz and Joao Fonseca, the fellow prodigy whom Jodar outlasted in three sets in the same Madrid tournament.
Just as eye-catching was Jodar’s 6-3, 6-1 claycourt demolition of Australia’s top-10 star Alex de Minaur in the previous round. The new “Rafa”, who idolised 22-time grand slam champion Rafael Nadal, is legit.
It was only in December last year that Jodar announced he was leaving the University of Virginia and the college tennis scene to turn professional.
“[He is] playing some incredible tennis,” Sinner said after beating Jodar 6-2, 7-6 (7-0) in Madrid, including saving seven break points.
“I cannot predict the future. What I always believe is they’re all incredible talents. Being an athlete, you always have a lot of pressure. My advice is always to keep the pressure as much as possible away from the present, even though I know there is always going to be a lot of talk off the court.”
The 191-centimetre kid from Madrid, still only 19, clocked a 175km/h forehand winner against Sinner in a demonstration of his raw power and audacious shot-making. He boasts a 200km/h-plus first serve, and is equally proficient on both wings.
The universal gushing is unavoidable when a phenom such as Jodar (HO-dar, with the “J” pronounced in Spanish like “H” in “hot”) achieves what he has in the past two months.
He qualified and won a round at this year’s Australian Open – his self-professed favourite tournament – and started March outside the top 100. But he will be seeded at Roland Garros – where Nadal won the singles crown 14 times – when the tournament begins on May 24 (AEST).
With Alcaraz’s wrist injury preventing him from defending his Paris title, only veteran Alejandro Davidovich-Fokina will be ranked higher than Jodar among Spaniards competing in the French capital.
Jodar’s rocket-ship rise included qualifying and making the round of 32 at the Miami Masters, winning the Marrakech ATP 250 title, reaching the semi-finals at ATP 500 level in Barcelona, and advancing to the quarter-finals at his home city event, the Madrid Masters.
He rounded out his Roland Garros preparation this week by reaching the quarter-finals at the Rome Masters.
Jodar is already fielding questions about his budding rivalry with Fonseca, who told this masthead in Brisbane in January that the young Spaniard had “great potential”. Jodar echoed those sentiments about the Brazilian.
“I’m sure he’s going to be doing great things,” Jodar said. “He’s a very young player, a great player, so I wish him the best of luck for the rest of the season and for his career.”
Sinner is the hottest of favourites to win this year’s Roland Garros championship in Alcaraz’s absence, and complete his grand slam set, but Jodar and Fonseca are just two of the young stars dreaming of dethroning him at the top of the sport.
There are 11 men aged 21 or younger inside the world’s top 100, including Australian Open quarter-finalist Learner Tien, last year’s Miami Masters champion Jakub Mensik, Madrid semi-finalist Alexander Blockx and Novak Djokovic-conquering Croat Dino Przmic.
Jodar dropped only five games sweeping past Tien in Rome.
Two more Spaniards, former junior world No.1 and fellow Rome quarter-finalist Martin Landaluce and Daniel Merida, are also in that territory – but Jodar has sped past both to become the country’s next great hope, even with Alcaraz only 22 years old himself.
Alcaraz offered his congratulations on social media after Jodar’s Madrid heroics, writing “Espectacular torneo!” (you can guess what that translates to), while Nadal’s uncle and ex-coach, Toni, has labelled him the best player of this new generation.
“His progression has been lightning fast in a very short period of time,” Toni Nadal told El Pais.
“I believe that, in a few years – and I will almost certainly be wrong, and it will only be months – Rafa will become one of the best tennis players in the world, a serious candidate to complicate the lives of the best players of the moment and to fight to lift the most important trophies.”
German great Boris Becker also added his praise, posting on X that Spain was lucky to have “another diamond in [their] arsenal”.
Something else that caught Sinner’s eye about Jodar was his minimalist entourage, with his father and coach Rafael Jodar snr – a physical education teacher who didn’t play the sport – often the only person in his player box.
But this is far from another cautionary tale among tennis’ notorious parent crew.
“He has a great family behind him. The father seems very, very humble,” Sinner said. “He has a small bubble, which is great for him. I think he’s going to make some incredible results in the future.”
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