Jannik Sinner and Rafael Jodar each proved something in Madrid quarterfinals

On Wednesday afternoon in Madrid, 19-year-old Rafael Jodar found out for the first time what it’s like to play the No. 1 player in the world. His reaction to a lost point in the second set told us all we needed to know about how it felt.

Jodar’s opponent, Jannik Sinner, the aforementioned No. 1 player, was serving at 3-4 in the second set. In this service game and the one before, he had saved a total of four break points. Each time Jodar had forced him onto the defensive, and each time Sinner had come up with a shot that was more calmly clutch than the last. He hit a forehand winner, a lob winner, and two more forehand winners. But Jodar kept knocking at the door, kept firing 90-m.p.h. missiles, and earned a fifth chance to break.

This time Sinner took the rally into his own hands with a drop shot. Jodar, rangy and deceptively fast for someone 6-foot-3, reached it in time to slide a backhand slice crosscourt. Sinner, with little time to react, angled a backhand behind Jodar that briefly looked as if it would fly wide. But it didn’t fly wide. It landed right on the sideline. All Jodar could do was stare, and slowly raise his hand to his forehead, in disbelief. It would be his last break point. He had knocked as hard as he could on the door, but Sinner wouldn’t let him in.

“He pushed me to the limit,” . “He’s an incredible player. I tried to be as ready as I could.”

The crowd inside Manolo Santana Stadium was ready for something special as well. Jodar had burst onto their radar screens over the past two months, winning a title, reaching a semifinal in Barcelona, and wowing the evening crowds as he made a quarterfinal run at his hometown tournament. Now the world would see how he matched up against the sport’s best.

For three games, Jodar looked ready for the test. With Sinner serving at 1-2, Jodar thumped a forehand 109 mph to earn a break point. The shot made a sort of sonic boom in the closed arena as it rifled past Sinner, and the expectation level in the crowd audibly rose. But Jodar may not have been ready for that kind of buzz, that level of hope, that early in the match. On break point, he guided a backhand nervously; it ticked the top of the tape, and gave Sinner an opening for a forehand winner. Jodar’s nerves didn’t dissipate, either. He was tight and hesitant, and error-prone, for the rest of the first set.

In the second set, though, he loosened back up, and we had what we wanted: The ATP’s present champion vs. a future contender for his crown. Those are big words, but the rallies lived up to the billing. Jodar was the aggressor in many of them, pressing and rushing Sinner with the pace of his backhand and the weight of his forehand. And while he never broke serve, he did show his own grit when he saved two break points at 4-4 in the second, and sent the set to a tiebreaker. The kid, it’s clear, can hit with anyone.

In the end, though, we learned just as much about Sinner as we did about Jodar. This was the 24-year-old’s first major test from a player of the next ATP generation, and you could see it in a few of his reactions. Sinner will always keep his emotions under wraps, but on Wednesday they emerged in a few uncharacteristic errors, a sarcastic thumbs-up or two at his team, his annoyance at a bad bounce. He even threatened, for a millisecond, to slam his racquet.

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Yet despite the various pressures Sinner felt—from Jodar’s pace, from the Spanish crowd, from his own desire to win his first encounter with a future rival—he never faltered when it mattered, never panicked, never pulled the trigger too early. On big points, he pushed Jodar back with heavy topspin, moved him in with drop shots, and waited for an opening. When it was there, he didn’t miss. He hit 28 winners to Jodar’s 19, and closed with a perfect 7-0 tiebreaker.

“I got a bit lucky in the second set, but also a bit of experience,” Sinner said.

That’s a humble but largely accurate summary of this highly anticipated contest.

In the end, each player proved something. Jodar showed why he belongs on the big stage. Sinner showed why he owns it.