By Shrivathsa Sridhar
PARIS, May 25 (Reuters) – Carlos Alcaraz may have established himself as the “Prince of Clay” with successive French Open titles in the post-Rafa Nadal era at Roland Garros but the defending champion’s absence this year has allowed another young Spaniard to grab the spotlight.
Away from Court Philippe Chatrier, where record 14-times champion Nadal forged his French Open legacy, 19-year-old Rafael Jodar quietly began carving his own path on Monday with a 6-1 6-0 6-4 first-round win over Aleksandar Kovacevic.
Like his idol Nadal did for the best part of two decades on the red dirt of Paris, Jodar showed no mercy to his opponent and backed up the growing hype around him after an impressive clay season in the build-up to the year’s second Grand Slam.
“I think I did things well from the start and I’m super happy to get my first win in Paris,” Jodar told reporters of the 94-minute workout on his Roland Garros main draw debut.
“First matches are always difficult in the tournament. So I had to serve very well. I tried to play my game during the first two sets, and even when the things got a little bit trickier in the third set and I had to face break points, I played well.
“When you’re playing a five-sets match, everything can go up and down. You just have to face it the best way possible.”
Ranked 903 a little more than a year ago, Jodar entered the top 50 last month after he bagged his first ATP title in Morocco and then made the semi-finals of the Barcelona Open. He followed that up with back-to-back quarter-finals in Madrid and Rome.
Those results lifted the energetic and aggressive Spaniard to number 29 in the world, but Jodar said he was not in a rush to place lofty expectations on himself.
“I still have to learn a lot of things in the tour,” he added. “It’s just my first year and I’m experiencing a lot of things in this past few months.
“But these experiences are really helping me to develop as a player, I think as a person, because I’m learning a lot when I’m playing the tournaments and when I’m preparing for the matches.
“It’s good to have that feeling to be able to compete in the French Open and in all these tournaments. I’m very grateful to be part of this tournament.”
Jodar, who began his tennis coaching aged six and trained at the Club de Tenis Chamartin, opted to play college tennis in the United States in 2024-25 and went to the University of Virginia.
His rapid progress meant he decided to turn professional at the start of 2026 but there were plenty of valuable lessons from the spell in America.
“I learned a lot of things … maybe to be more mature,” Jodar added. “I think that living there alone, it was great to develop and to do things by myself.
“Sure, there were coaches and players on my team that were helping me to try to get used to the new culture and to the new things in the U.S., but it was a new chapter, new culture for me, actually a new life.
“I think the way I approached those months were really helpful for me, and I think I matured a lot in those months in college.”
Jodar will resume his French Open campaign when he takes on Australia’s James Duckworth.
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Paris, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
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