The Spanish tennis player Rafa Jódar entered this Friday in the third round of the Rome tournament, the third clay-court Masters 1000 of the season, after winning in two sets in a disputed match against the Portuguese Nuno Borges (7-6(4), 6-4) in a duel in which the Madrid native exhibited a very high level with his serve, with which he scored up to 11 aces.
Rafa Jódar confirmed in his debut in Rome that he has reached the elite of the ATP circuit to stay. Faced with an uncomfortable rival for his debut on the Roman clay like Nuno Borges, the one from Leganés knew how to turn around a first set that went against him after giving up his second turn of service to end up taking it in a tie break in which he was better. And later, a solitary break in favor at the start of the second set would be enough to win the match.
And, beyond that break conceded in the third game of the match, Rafa Jódar’s serve was his main weapon. He achieved up to 11 direct serves in the match, in which he maintained 59% of first serves, with which he won 37 of the 48 points in play. A Spanish tennis player who with this triumph ensures his status as the top seed in the next Roland Garros.
A match in which it seemed that Jódar was going to be much more forceful in his victory, since he started with a blank serve and break options in his first game to the rest. However, the Portuguese took advantage of the Spaniard’s errors in his next service turn to take advantage of a break, which Jódar would not recover until the eighth game. There, in the final stretch of the set, after the serves prevailed, the young Spanish talent would close the set in a sudden death in which he went from 3-4 down to the final 7-4.
And taking advantage of the emotional boost that came with ending the first set in that way, Jódar would take advantage of the first game of the second set to break Borges’ serve for the second time in the match. An advantage that would be definitive for the match, despite the fact that he had to save up to three breaking points against him. Thus, they would end up closing their pass to the third round 6-4 after almost two hours of play.