{"id":670793,"date":"2026-07-03T01:09:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T01:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/670793\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T01:09:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T01:09:07","slug":"rafael-jodar-hits-back-to-beat-pablo-carreno-busta-at-wimbledon-after-delay-wimbledon-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/670793\/","title":{"rendered":"Rafael Jodar hits back to beat Pablo Carre\u00f1o Busta at Wimbledon after delay | Wimbledon 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is Rafael Jodar\u2019s first Wimbledon<\/a> and yet the way the 19-year-old plays and talks, you would think he is playing his 10th. Trailing two sets to one to another Spaniard, Pablo Carre\u00f1o Busta, in a match held over from the previous evening when the light ran out, he could easily have been nervous when the encounter resumed, thinking his first time here could be about to end.<\/p>\n

Not a bit of it. Jodar quickly levelled and then edged the fifth to win 3-6, 6-3, 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 and move into the third round. \u201cI knew I had to get my body ready for the next day, because obviously I was down,\u201d said Jodar, who has burst on to the scene this year and who reached the quarter-finals at Roland Garros last month. \u201cBut I believed in my chances. I believed that I could come back and win the fourth set and then the fifth set. That\u2019s what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started pretty well this morning. I knew the conditions were different, so I had to adapt to that, as well. But for him, it was same. So it\u2019s same conditions for both. I think I did a great job when we stopped the match last night until I stepped on the court this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jodar will play Shintaro Mochizuki of Japan in the third round, with the carrot of a likely last-16 match against the defending champion, Jannik Sinner. Not only is this his first time at Wimbledon; it\u2019s also his first grass-court event, but he seems to be oblivious to any problems that may bring.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have a lot of time to reset your mind to this new surface,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s true it\u2019s my first time playing on grass. It wasn\u2019t like that when I started playing on clay this season, because I had already played a lot when I was younger on clay. I just try to adapt. I got a good week of preparation here in Wimbledon the week before starting the tournament, so I\u2019m confident with that. I try to give my best.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second seed, Alexander Zverev, fresh from his first grand slam title at Roland Garros, beat Valentin Royer of France 6-1, 6-3, 7-6 (3), while the fifth seed, Alex de Minaur, saw off Adrian Mannarino of France 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 and the No 6, Taylor Fritz, beat fellow American Patrick Kipson 6-2, 6-2, 7-5.<\/p>\n

With the No 4 seed, Ben Shelton, gone from his section, in theory the draw is opening up for De Minaur. But the Australian insists he is not looking any further ahead than a third-round meeting with Zachary Svajda of the US. \u201cSeeds lose, upsets happen,\u201d he said. \u201cThis sport is unpredictable. It\u2019s not straightforward, so whether you\u2019re ranked higher than your opponent, it really means nothing when you go into the match. You both start the same. It\u2019s just another match.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fritz will play Lorenzo Sonego of Italy in the third round, having negotiated tricky conditions early on before the sunshine took over. \u201cIt was super windy in the beginning,\u201d he said. \u201cI felt a little nervy because it\u2019s sometimes tough to trust my shots when it\u2019s so windy. I settled into the match well, did a good job returning his serve. I thought I served really well most of the match, outside of just one game. In the end it was just a clean match.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flavio Cobolli, the Italian who reached his first slam final at Roland Garros, battled past Australia\u2019s James Duckworth 7-6 (4), 3-6, 7-6 (3), 6-1 while Czechia\u2019s Jiri Lehecka, Belgium\u2019s Zizou Bergs and American Marcos Giron all advanced to the third round.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is Rafael Jodar\u2019s first Wimbledon and yet the way the 19-year-old plays and talks, you would think…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-670793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}