A few hours before Rafael J\u00f3dar and Joao Fonseca took to the clay of the Manolo Santana Stadium, Jannik Sinner was full of praise for the biggest names in the new generation of players. \u201cThose born in 2006… They\u2019re all very, very good players. It\u2019s such a strong generation\u201d, gushed the world number one. J\u00f3dar and Fonseca have just proved him right.<\/p>\n
The Caja Magica\u2019s centre court was packed to the rafters for the biggest match of the day. The spectators waited with bated breath for the first J\u00f3dar-Fonseca; from the early hours of the afternoon the Mutua Madrid Open\u2019s venue had been teeming with fans, many of them Brazilian, and they now provided a splash of colour across the stands and ignited an atmosphere worthy of what they were about to witness. J\u00f3dar and Fonseca responded to the hype surrounding their \u2018clash of the future\u2019 with a match that will not be forgotten any time soon.<\/p>\n
A forehand winner at 00:58 in the morning took J\u00f3dar over the finishing line, crowning a 7-6 (7-4), 4-6, 6-1 victory after two hours and ten minutes of tennis. It was J\u00f3dar\u2019s eleventh win on this clay swing after a title in Marrakech, semifinals in Barcelona, and now a dream run in Madrid. A dream because the Spaniard is now through to the last sixteen, where on Tuesday he will meet the Czech world No. 66 Vit Kopriva, who reached the round thanks to the withdrawal of Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech when their match was tied at 6-4, 3-6.<\/p>\n
Last night\u2019s made it three wins out of three for J\u00f3dar in the Manolo Santana Stadium. The 19-year-old is playing with a maturity way beyond his years. The pressure on his young shoulders on Sunday was immense; having defeated Alex de Minaur in the second round, he was now charged with proving it was no fluke. Moreover, the man on the other side of the net was a Joao Fonseca who always brings with him hoards of Brazilian fans. But apparently J\u00f3dar does not know the meaning of the word nerves. All he knows is how to unleash supersonic, line-hugging forehands and backhands from all over the court. The kid from Legan\u00e9s does not do things by half.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the end I knew I had to play my own game in the third set. Everything went well and I\u2019m very happy with my level in set three. I knew Joao was an incredibly tough opponent and I knew I had to play well to get the win\u201d, said J\u00f3dar immediately after the conclusion of the match. \u201cOnly time will tell if we\u2019ll cross paths again frequently. Today we both played really well and I wish him the best for the rest of his career\u201d.<\/p>\n
This is the first time in his short career that J\u00f3dar has reached the last sixteen of an ATP Masters 1000 event. And he has done it in Madrid, his home, his territory. The dream is not over. The dream has only just begun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few hours before Rafael J\u00f3dar and Joao Fonseca took to the clay of the Manolo Santana Stadium, Jannik Sinner was full of praise for the biggest names in the new generation of players. \u201cThose born in 2006… They\u2019re all very, very good players. It\u2019s such a strong generation\u201d, gushed the world number one. J\u00f3dar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":108116,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[838,837],"tags":[1158],"class_list":["post-108144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-noticias-tenis-masculino-en","category-noticias-tenis-en","tag-rafael-jodar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108144"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108146,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108144\/revisions\/108146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}