While Jodar, like any young aspiring Spanish player, does idolise Nadal, the reason he shares the name with the 22-time major winner is through family tradition: both his father and grandfather were named Rafael.<\/p>\n
“Rafa for me is a role model since I was a kid, not just in tennis but in general. I think he’s super humble,” Jodar said.<\/p>\n
“When I had the chance to talk to him he was a very good person, he gave me some advice.<\/p>\n
“I am super grateful for everything he has done for Spanish sport and the tennis world.”<\/p>\n
Jodar only turned professional last year, after a brief period gaining experience in the United States college system.<\/p>\n
He broke into the world’s top 100 in March after a strong start to 2026 and captured his first ATP Tour title in Marrakech a month later.<\/p>\n
He further demonstrated his propensity to thrive on clay by reaching the Barcelona semi-finals and the Madrid quarter-finals, where he lost to world number one Jannik Sinner.<\/p>\n
But it was his Roland Garros run – where he became just the fifth man this century to reach the Paris quarter-finals on his main-draw debut – that really caught the eye.<\/p>\n
So, what can be expected from Jodar on the grass courts?<\/p>\n
Across International Tennis Federation (ITF) tournaments – the level below the ATP Tour – Jodar has a 90% win record on grass, winning nine of 10 matches in 2024.<\/p>\n
That single defeat came at Wimbledon in a straight-set loss to Japan’s Naoya Honda at the quarter-final stage of the boy’s singles competition.<\/p>\n
The loss brought an end to a nine-match winning run in south west London, after he prepared for the tournament by taking the junior title in Roehampton without losing a set.<\/p>\n
While it remains to be seen how he will fare at the top level, Jodar appears to possess the weapons that can see him thrive on the grass.<\/p>\n
His game is founded on aggressive baseline striking and the Spaniard is behind only tour leader Sinner, renowned for his baseline dominance, in the ATP’s ‘return rating’ value which combines each players’ scores across first and second serve return points won, return games won, and break points converted.<\/p>\n
Across the past 52 weeks, Jodar’s record of winning 34.0% of first-serve return points is ahead of Sinner, and behind only Argentine Mariano Navone in the men’s game.<\/p>\n
Despite his relative inexperience, he also tends to remain unflinching in key moments.<\/p>\n
Jodar is second on the tour for break points converted, his 44.7% putting him ahead of compatriot Carlos Alcaraz (43.6%).<\/p>\n
His ATP ‘under pressure’ rating – calculated by combining a player’s number of break points converted, break points saved, and tie-breaks and deciding sets won – is bettered by just nine players across the men’s game, and better than five of the world’s top 10.<\/p>\n
With Alcaraz missing Wimbledon because of a wrist injury, all eyes back in Spain will be on their latest teenage talent – but Jodar is not fazed by the attention.<\/p>\n
“Tennis is one of the most popular sports in Spain. It has always had many good players,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Being a young player who is doing well on tour is cool.<\/p>\n
“Everyone who wants a picture, autograph, I will always do that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Jodar, like any young aspiring Spanish player, does idolise Nadal, the reason he shares the name with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-705418","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\/705418","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=705418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}