![\"Jaume](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/munar-us-open-2025-feature.jpg\")
<\/p>\n ATP Tour
\n Munar, doctoral dreams long behind him, shining brighter than ever<\/p>\n
The Spaniard is into the second week of the US Open<\/p>\n
August 31, 2025<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ishika Samant\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Jaume Munar entered the US Open at a career-high No. 44 in the PIF ATP Rankings.
\n By Andrew Eichenholz<\/p>\n
Jaume Munar<\/a> showed his potential at a young age, qualifying for the Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF<\/a> in 2018 alongside the likes of Stefanos Tsitsipas<\/a>, Alex de Minaur<\/a>, Taylor Fritz<\/a>, Andrey Rublev<\/a>, Frances Tiafoe<\/a> and Hubert Hurkacz<\/a>, all of whom have since cracked the Top 10 in the PIF ATP Rankings.<\/p>\n Although the Spaniard has not climbed quite as high as those stars, he is playing the best tennis of his life seven years later. The 28-year-old on Saturday reached the fourth round of a major for the first time at the US Open<\/a> and will face 10th seed Lorenzo Musetti<\/a> for a place in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n What fans might not know is that there was a chance Munar would not have become a tennis player at all. His focus growing up was on becoming a doctor. Munar\u2019s father, Blai, owned a small hotel and would work in it because it was a family business, but that was not his passion.<\/p>\n \u201cThe real dream of my dad a long time ago was to be a doctor,\u201d Munar told ATPTour.com. \u201cI\u2019ve been growing up and I remember listening, listening and listening to that story because he had no chance to go to the university. I don\u2019t know why, but I started to like these kinds of things.<\/p>\n \u201cI like science a lot and two of my best friends are now doctors. One of them is a cardiologist and the other one is a maxillofacial surgeon, the one doing surgeries on the face.\u201d<\/p>\n Munar\u2019s favourite subject in school was biology and for a time, he was driven to follow a path towards medicine. But aged 17, he made the Roland Garros<\/a> boys\u2019 singles final and reached No. 3 in the ITF Junior Rankings. <\/p>\n \u201cI was in the mood to try to invest time and money in my [tennis] career, which I did,\u201d Munar said. \u201cI remember talking to my mom and I said once, \u2018Give me until 22. If when I am 22 I am not Top 100 and I don\u2019t make money myself, I swear I will go back to studies\u2019. <\/p>\n \u201cSuddenly when I was 21, I became Top 100 and it was financially okay, so I decided to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n With the exception of a few brief stints outside the Top 100, Munar has remained in the elite group since first entering in June 2018 aged 21. He has earned 114 tour-level victories \u2014 including three against Top 10 opponents \u2014 and remained a consistent presence on the ATP Tour.<\/p>\n But earlier in his career, Munar also took online classes and still today he enjoys educating himself and speaking to his medical friends about their work.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a lot in touch with them and we like to talk about these things and I\u2019m really open to listening to their stories,\u201d Munar said. \u201cBut for sure I will not be a doctor, I am a tennis player now.\u201d<\/p>\n The No. 37 player in the PIF ATP Rankings recently read a book by an Indian doctor about how people behave, how they handle fear and use it in their favour. The 10-time ATP Challenger Tour champion believes the concepts apply to tennis, too.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been [a person] with a lot of fears during my career. I\u2019ve been through some difficult moments the past couple of years, so I\u2019ve really experienced a lot of time with fear and the natural thing is just to make it natural,\u201d Munar said. \u201cIt\u2019s part of the game, it\u2019s part of life and it sounds so easy, but it\u2019s difficult to put it to [practice].\u201d<\/p>\n In the past two years, Munar has made a lot of changes both on and off the court. The new Andorra resident has put a major focus on playing more aggressive tennis.<\/p>\n \u201cIt took a couple of years \u2014 a long two years \u2014 to put everything in place,\u201d said Munar, who is a member of the ATP Player Advisory Council. \u201cNow we have a little bit the results that I want. I still have a long way [to go] and improvements to do, I feel, but it\u2019s getting closer and closer.\u201d<\/p>\n After beginning his Grand Slam career 0-11 in second-round matches, Munar reached the third round at Wimbledon<\/a> and now the fourth round at the US Open<\/a>. But there is still plenty of new ground to break, beginning with his clash against Musetti.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m here to go for more,\u201d Munar said. \u201cI\u2019m very glad and thankful for the opportunity I have on Monday. I\u2019m looking forward to a huge match, but I will just rest, reset and try to restart because it\u2019s a new week and a new chance.\u201d<\/p>\n Did You Know? \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATP Tour Munar, doctoral dreams long behind him, shining brighter than ever The Spaniard is into the second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-124124","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"It](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1756699148_296_it-all-adds-up-banner.jpg\"\/)
<\/a><\/p>\n
Munar is close friends with Joan Mir, who won the MotoGP World Championship in 2020, and Enric Mas, the star cyclist.<\/p>\n