{"id":94945,"date":"2026-01-02T12:33:34","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T17:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=94945"},"modified":"2026-01-02T15:29:32","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T20:29:32","slug":"nextgenatp-star-rafael-jodar-turns-professional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2026\/01\/02\/nextgenatp-star-rafael-jodar-turns-professional\/","title":{"rendered":"#NextGenATP Star Rafael Jodar Turns Professional"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Spanish teenager Rafael Jodar has announced his intention to turn professional as the 2026 season begins, following a strong performance at the Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF in Jeddah last month.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, Jodar <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DS6DWsDk1l-\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">shared<\/a> on Instagram that he would be concluding his U.S. college career after playing for the University of Virginia Cavaliers during the 2024 and 2025 seasons.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter a period of deep reflection, careful consideration and many conversations with my family and coaches, I have decided to forgo my remaining college eligibility at UVA and pursure my professional tennis career as of 2026,\u201d wrote Jodar.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy time in college has played a huge role in my growth both as a player and as a person, and I now feel prepared to take this next step and embrace a new challenge in my life.\u201d He added.<\/p>\n<p>Jodar, who first enrolled at the University of Virginia in 2024, won the ITA National Rookie of the Year as a Virginia freshman following his impressive play during the 2024-25 college campaign.<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2171730012\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.66667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/2171730012?et=KUMmLGQqQEhAmPTJKQbwvw&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=Qr5Dy1LNtUrPrpVwl5miwLbt3aQdOcJIg_PdHdc31F0=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>In December, the 19-year-old secured a 2-1 record in Jeddah, scoring <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/12\/16\/atp-next-gen-finals-player-profile-rafael-jodar\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">group-stage victories<\/a> against top seed and eventual champion Learner Tien, as well as Martin Landaluce.<\/p>\n<p>After claiming three ATP Challenger titles in 2025, Jodar will start his professional career ranked No. 168 in the PIF ATP Rankings. He achieved his career-high ranking of No. 166 in early November, following his third Challenger title win in Charlottesville.<\/p>\n<p>The young Spanish star has previously been a hitting partner for world #1 Carlos Alcaraz and is seen as one of the brightest young talents on the ATP Tour.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo Credit: Imago Images Photo by Corinne Dubreuil\/ABACAPRESS.COM<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spanish teenager Rafael Jodar has announced his intention to turn professional as the 2026 season begins, following a strong performance at the Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF in Jeddah last month. On Wednesday, Jodar shared on Instagram that he would be concluding his U.S. college career after playing for the University of Virginia [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4883,"featured_media":94952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2,9],"tags":[3188,1625,259,2830,43245,243],"class_list":["post-94945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp","category-featured","category-news","tag-atp-challenger-tour","tag-atp-next-gen","tag-atp-tour","tag-ncaa-tennis","tag-rafael-jodar","tag-spanish-tennis"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4883"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94945"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94956,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94945\/revisions\/94956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}