{"id":884899,"date":"2026-10-16T23:42:35","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T23:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/884899\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T23:42:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T23:42:35","slug":"jodar-owns-up-to-ball-kid-incident-in-shanghai-im-human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/884899\/","title":{"rendered":"Jodar Owns Up to Ball Kid Incident in Shanghai: \u201cI\u2019m Human\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daily Fuzz<\/p>\n

The 20-year-old Spaniard apologized for his actions during his post-match press conference on Friday in Shanghai. <\/p>\n

Chris OddoOctober 16, 20262 minute read<\/p>\n

Rafael Jodar is learning some valuable lessons in Shanghai, both on and off the court.<\/p>\n

The 20-year-old Spaniard rallied past Casper Ruud 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 to reach the Shanghai Masters semifinals, then took time in his post-match press conference to address backlash from an incident that occurred earlier in the week when he berated a ball kid during his round-of-16 victory over Botic van de Zandschulp.<\/p>\n

\"tennis<\/a><\/p>\n

Jodar received an unsportsmanlike conduct warning for his behavior. It wasn\u2019t the first time the young Spaniard has behaved in a less than admirable way to ball kids, and his actions drew criticism on social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Jodar took full responsibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was my mistake,\u201d Jodar said when fielding questions from the media (two of the four questions he took were about the incident). \u201cAfter the match, I thought about it, and I shouldn\u2019t have done that to the ball kid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jodar explained that his frustration with the match had boiled over, but acknowledged that it was no excuse for his actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t control my emotions at that point of the match,\u201d he explained. \u201cI\u2019ll try not to do it again, because that\u2019s not the right way to treat the ball kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jodar, who will face Daniil Medvedev for the first time in the semifinals in Shanghai on Saturday, said the umpire was entirely justified in issuing the warning, and \u2013 when prompted \u2013 expressed his desire to apologize personally to the ball kid if he gets the opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I have any chance to see him here at the venue, I\u2019ll try to tell him that I\u2019m very sorry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For Jodar, it\u2019s all a part of growing up on tour. He vows to be better, and hopefully he will.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I am learning how to do the forehand or how to do the backhand or how to do the serve, I\u2019m also learning how to behave on the court,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not perfect, I\u2019m a human, I make mistakes, so I\u2019ll learn from this mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daily Fuzz The 20-year-old Spaniard apologized for his actions during his post-match press conference on Friday in Shanghai.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-884899","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\/884899","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=884899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}