Nobody lost a match. Jodar blew out his candles on Thursday, and the next day’s ranking came out with no player under 20 anywhere in its first hundred places.
The last time the top 100 looked like this was July 2014. On the 7th, Nick Kyrgios, 19, went from 144th to 66th the day after his Wimbledon run. A few months later Borna Coric, still 17, got in too, after his semi-final in Basel.
Twelve years on, the slot is empty again, and it emptied without a single result changing: a birthday was enough. It will take a run like Kyrgios at Wimbledon, or Coric in Basel, to fill it.
The next ones are waiting a floor below. Federico Cina, 19, is 168th, the best placed of the teenagers. Jan Kumstat, 19, is 184th after a summer of sharp progress. Diego Dedura-Palomero, 18, is 188th. Moïse Kouame, 17, is 199th.
What interests me is the mechanism. You don’t play a point, you blow out your candles, and your status changes. That’s exactly January for me: I haven’t touched a ball since the November bubble, and I still find out what I’m worth.
“No matter the angle, watching Rafa Jódar hit the ball is a marvel”, the Spanish tennis federation wrote on its Tenis España account.
168th, 184th, 188th, 199th, and the youngest is 17: it’s jammed up down there, the level among the young ones has gone way up, people don’t realise. I’m told there’s a gap between them and me. What I see is two practice sessions a week and the strip lighting on court 4. Two practice sessions away, mind you. And my season really starts in May, so I’ve got time.
It’s true, we checked: Tennis Actu.
