Rafa Jódar beats Carabelli and is the only Spanish hope in the Godó

The Spanish tennis player Rafael Jódar has advanced to the quarterfinals of the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell-73rd Conde de Godó Trophy, of the ATP500 category and which is played on the clay of the RCTB-1899, after beating the Argentine Camilo Ugo Carabelli by fast track with a result of 6-3 and 6-3.

In an hour and a half of play, the young tennis player from Madrid, just 19 years old and in his first foray into the professional circuit, was able to put an end to the initial resistance of the Argentine Carabelli and achieve his best result in an ATP500 tournament in his budding career.

In the first set, Jódar achieved three breaks of serve in the fourth, sixth and ninth games, while Camilo Ugo Carabelli achieved a break in the first game. Thus, Jódar held his serve more times to close the first set 6-3. Of course, they had to recover emotionally after being 0-2 down in the opening of the match.

The start of the second set was similar, with Jódar breaking Carabelli’s service in the third game (2-1) and repeating it in the ninth and final game, without giving up his serve more times and also managing to close a second set 6-3 that was much more comfortable than the first, although at 4-3 and his service he had to save two breaking points from the Argentine.

Looking at serve statistics, Rafael Jódar had a first serve percentage of 70% and won 65% of the points on his serve. Furthermore, he did not commit double faults in the first set and maintained a high level of play with 21 winners throughout the match.

Jódar, invited by the tournament, debuted in Barcelona in the first round and eliminated fellow Spaniard Jaume Munar by a clear 1-6 and 2-6. And, in the round of 16, he scores this double 6-3 against Ugo Carabelli to, along with the goodbye due to injury to the great favorite Carlos Alcaraz, remains the only Spaniard alive in the tournament. And in the quarterfinals he will play against the British Cameron Norrie or the American from the previous one Ethan Quinn.

Previously, the big surprise of the day on the Barcelona clay court – because the bomb was the one that Alcaraz produced in the press room – was the defeat of the third seed of the tournament, the Australian of Spanish origin Alex de Minaur against the Serbian, from the previous one, Hamad Medjedovic by 6-3 and 6-4 in 1:35 hours of play.

And the bad day for the Argentine tennis players began with Tomás Martín Etcheverry when, in the morning, he fell at the hands of the Portuguese Nuno Borges 6-3 and 7-6 in 2:01 hours. With an atypical and epic ending when serving, in the final tie break, the Portuguese with a ‘spoon’ (underneath) and deceiving the Argentine, who did not like this allowed but frowned upon play.