{"id":354686,"date":"2025-12-17T19:49:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T19:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/354686\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T19:49:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T19:49:07","slug":"rafael-jodar-saves-4-mps-stuns-top-seed-learner-tien-in-next-gen-atp-finals-thriller-atp-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/354686\/","title":{"rendered":"Rafael Jodar saves 4 MPs, stuns top seed Learner Tien in Next Gen ATP Finals thriller | ATP Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        Next Gen ATP Finals<br \/>\n    Jodar saves 4 MPs, stuns top seed Tien in Jeddah thriller<\/p>\n<p>Landaluce vs. Budkov Kjaer to close night-session action on Day 1<\/p>\n<p>December 17, 2025<\/p>\n<p>Corinne Dubreuil\/ATP Tour<\/p>\n<p>        Rafael Jodar stuns 2024 finalist Learner in an explosive Jeddah debut.<br \/>\n        By ATP Staff<\/p>\n<p>Rafael Jodar ensured that there was no shortage of drama on his debut appearance at the Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF in Jeddah on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n<p>The World No. 168 saved four match points in a courageous 1-4, 4-3(3), 1-4, 4-2, 4-3(4) win over top seed and tournament favourite Learner Tien in front of a vibrant crowd. Jodar, who was in Jeddah last year as a hitting partner, delivered a heavy-hitting display and used his fearless aggression late in the fifth-set to earn a two-hour victory.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">That Jodar celebration \ud83c\udf89 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NextGenATPFinals?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#NextGenATPFinals<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/RiAFMLmyrJ\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/RiAFMLmyrJ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Next Gen ATP Finals (@nextgenfinals) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nextgenfinals\/status\/2001358265670930840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 17, 2025<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a battle,\u201d said Jodar. \u201cI knew the conditions were good for both, but I handled the good moments very well and I\u2019m super happy to get the first win here in Jeddah. I just tried to keep going and believe in myself. Learner always plays well, so I had to keep believing and I knew that I was going to have a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tien, the World No. 28 and only Top 100 player in the field, leaked 23 unforced errors across the second and fourth sets to offer Jodar a route back into their first Lexus ATP Head2Head clash. But the 19-year-old Spaniard will take all the plaudits for the way he fended off the match points \u2014 including a drilled backhand down-the-line winner on the fourth.<\/p>\n<p>After moving to 1-0 in Blue Group, the seventh-seeded Jodar can now look ahead to meetings with two fellow debutants \u2014 Martin Landaluce and Nicolai Budkov Kjaer \u2014 in the round-robin stage.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Next Gen ATP Finals Jodar saves 4 MPs, stuns top seed Tien in Jeddah thriller Landaluce vs. Budkov&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-354686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354686","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=354686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}