Rafael Jodar’s breakthrough clay court season came to an end in the Roland Garros quarterfinals.
Jodar was ranked outside the top 700 this time last year, but he is now a top-30-ranked player.
The Spanish teenager has made a real breakthrough during the clay court season, with Jodar winning his first ATP title, as well as reaching the quarterfinals in Madrid, Rome and Roland Garros.
After Jodar lost to Alexander Zverev at Roland Garros, former top 10 player Andrea Petkovic revealed what she has not liked about the discussion surrounding the 19-year-old.
Andrea Petkovic does not like the pressure that was put on Rafael Jodar
Despite it being Jodar’s first ever appearance at Roland Garros, he was actually one of the favourites to win the title in Paris, particularly following the shock early defeat of Jannik Sinner.
When reflecting on his defeat to Zverev on The Big T Podcast, Petkovic admitted that she did not like the amount of pressure that had been put on Jodar at Roland Garros this year.
Petkovic was also full of praise for her compatriot Zverev, who she claimed was dealing well with being the top ranked player remaining in the men’s singles draw at Roland Garros this year.
“I don’t like when we put so much pressure on players like Rafa Jodar,” said Petkovic. “He was at one point in this tournament the second favourite to win the title. The guy is 19 years old! This is his second major tournament he’s ever played in his life.
“Why are we putting this amount of pressure on a young guy? Give him the time to develop into himself as a man, as an athlete, as a tennis player, he will have plenty of opportunities and today we saw what can happen when you have these tough matches in the first week with the heat.
“He just got gassed, exactly as you said after that really tight set at 7-6, after that he just didn’t have enough energy anymore and it was very obvious that whoever was able to change up the line first was the one in control and it was Zverev.
“Because he did play very courageous after he went down and played very aggressively and was very impressive. Because I think a lot of people are questioning stability, but under the most amount of pressure in the tie-break, he played fabulous tennis.”
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Jodar is now set to rise up to world number 23 in the world rankings, and is even higher in the race at 12th ahead of Novak Djokovic.
Despite this, Jodar still has many things he is yet to experience in professional tennis, including playing at both Wimbledon and the US Open.
Jodar will now look ahead to the grass court season, a surface he has still yet to play a tour-level match on.
The 19-year-old will make his ATP Tour grass court debut at the Queen’s Club Championships, with Jodar also being entered into the Eastbourne International before Wimbledon.
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Jodar has shown that he can play on grass before, as he is a former junior Wimbledon quarterfinalist.
He will now look to transition this into the senior game, with the ATP tournament at Queen’s beginning on Monday, June 15.
