MADRID (AP) \u2014 After clinching a first-round win on debut at the Madrid Open, Spain’s newest tennis sensation Rafael J\u00f3dar raised his arms and opened them wide to imitate the goal celebration England and Real Madrid soccer star Jude Bellingham.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old J\u00f3dar, a Madrid native and a Real Madrid fan, then wrote \u201cHey Jude\u201d on the lens of one of the TV cameras.<\/p>\n
Bellingham, who was in the stands Wednesday, smiled and applauded. The two then met briefly and posed for a photo doing Bellingham’s goal celebration together.<\/p>\n
\u201cI talked to him after the match, asked him if he had liked it,\u201d J\u00f3dar said. \u201cI didn’t know that he was going to be here, it meant a lot to me. He’s a great person. I’m very grateful that he came. He’s an example for me, he’s my favorite soccer player.\u201d<\/p>\n
J\u00f3dar had met Bellingham and other Real Madrid players when he was honored by the club at the Santiago Bernab\u00e9u Stadium following J\u00f3dar’s title at the 2024 U.S. Open Boys’ championship.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, he needed 2 1\/2 hours to rally past Jesper de Jong 2-6, 7-5, 6-4 at the Caja Magica center court in the Spanish capital.<\/p>\n
With the victory, J\u00f3dar became just the third Spaniard \u2014 after Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz \u2014 to earn a main-draw win in Madrid before turning 20.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really looking forward to competing here, but I knew I had to play a solid match from start to finish,\u201d J\u00f3dar said. \u201cI\u2019m happy because this victory allows me to play another match here.\u201d<\/p>\n
J\u00f3dar, who earlier this month won in Marrakech for his first ATP Tour title, was outside the top 600 in the rankings just a year ago. He entered the top 100 in March, and is now No. 42 in the world.<\/p>\n
He will next face fifth-seed Alex de Minaur of Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADRID (AP) \u2014 After clinching a first-round win on debut at the Madrid Open, Spain’s newest tennis sensation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2328,710,5811,91,1562,1558,5812,2095,6292,712,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-10000","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-alex-de-minaur","9":"tag-carlos-alcaraz","10":"tag-jesper-de-jong","11":"tag-jude-bellingham","12":"tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","13":"tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","14":"tag-product-40818-ap-virginia-sports-only","15":"tag-rafael-jodar","16":"tag-rafael-jodar-bellingham-madrid-open","17":"tag-rafael-nadal","18":"tag-spain"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}