Richard Krajicek was effusive in his praise for Rafael Jodar as he spoke exclusively to Tennis365 about a group of young stars on the ATP Tour.<\/p>\n
Having played college tennis at the University of Virginia in 2024, Jodar made the decision to turn pro last year, and his rise has been remarkable.<\/p>\n
In April, Jodar won his maiden ATP Tour title in Marrakech at what was his first-ever tour-level event on clay.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old Spaniard was then a semi-finalist at the Barcelona Open before reaching the quarter-finals in Madrid, Rome and at Roland Garros.<\/p>\n
After losing to\u00a0Taylor Fritz in the Washington Open final on Monday, Jodar<\/a> soared to a new career-high ranking of world No 15.<\/p>\n Carlos\u00a0Alcaraz<\/a> and Jannik Sinner<\/a> have been the two dominant players in men\u2019s tennis since the start of 2024, with the duo each having claimed five of the last 11 Grand Slam titles.<\/p>\n Asked by Tennis365 which rising players are most likely to challenge Alcaraz and Sinner in the future, Krajicek first mentioned Joao Fonseca.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know, challenge\u2026 that\u2019s maybe a couple years away still, but I like [Joao] Fonseca,\u201d said the Dutchman.<\/p>\n Exclusive: Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner\u2019s rivals get ominous verdict that should worry them<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Carlos Alcaraz out of the US Open? Grand Slam finalist makes big withdrawal claim after injury setback<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n The 1996 Wimbledon champion then went on to laud Jodar as he revealed he watched the Spaniard\u2019s five-set French Open win against Alex Michelsen from courtside.<\/p>\n \u201cI really like Jodar a lot \u2014 people notice him, but maybe not enough yet,\u201d Krajicek declared.<\/p>\n \u201cI saw him at the French Open playing [Alex] Michelsen. I was sitting really close, and I saw the way he plays, the mentality, the relationship with the Dad, the energy, also with the crowd.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so impressed with this guy. For me, unbelievable. Maybe I would feel the same if I saw Fonseca play like that up close.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I\u2019m very impressed. Jodar is really up there. He\u2019s for sure one of the guys, together with Fonseca, and [Jakub] Mensik, of course. And also Learner Tien.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd Ben Shelton \u2013 he\u2019s a bit older. He has a big serve, leftie, a little bit different game, so if you\u2019re a little bit different as a player, that also helps.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT: ATP Cincinnati Open Entry List 2026, Prize Money, Points: Sinner, Djokovic, Zverev star; Alcaraz absent<\/a> The post Richard Krajicek names rising ATP star who could challenge Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Richard Krajicek was effusive in his praise for Rafael Jodar as he spoke exclusively to Tennis365 about a group of young stars on the ATP Tour. Having played college tennis at the University of Virginia in 2024, Jodar made the decision to turn pro last year, and his rise has been remarkable. In April, Jodar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2600\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}ATP Tour News<\/h2>\n
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