No. 12 seed Rafael Jodar came from behind again on Friday and advanced to the Rolex Shanghai Masters semifinals with a 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory against No. 20 Casper Ruud of Norway.
The 20-year-old Spaniard won his fourth consecutive match from a set down at the ATP Masters 1000 tournament, breaking his opponent’s serve five times over the last two sets to become the youngest semifinalist in event history.
“I was feeling great on court. I think it was a very close match,” Jodar said after his 2-hour, 20-minute win. “Casper, I think, played the important points in the first set better than me. I couldn’t win the break points because of his serve, so I knew I wanted to come back again. It was very tough, so I had to give my best level today to win this match.”
Jodar finished with 28 winners and 31 unforced errors, 10 fewer than Ruud. Ruud held a 4-3 lead in the second set before losing five of the next six games in a major momentum shift.
Jodar improved to 42-16 in his first full season on the ATP Tour and boosted his shot at qualifying for the eight-player Nitto ATP Finals. He jumped Novak Djokovic and Alex de Minaur into ninth place in the PIF ATP Live Race to Turin. With Jannik Sinner out for the season, ninth place would be the last man in for the season finale.
“I’m super happy how the season is going,” Jodar said. “Very high level, but still a lot of things to improve, which is very good because that means I can become a better player in the future. I just want more things. It’s the first year on Tour and there are still a few tournaments, so I will try to give my best in the matches I have left this season.”
His semifinal opponent will be former champion Daniil Medvedev. The fifth-seeded Russian outlasted No. 15 Tommy Paul 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 in the quarterfinals on Friday.
Medvedev hammered 16 aces and saved 11 of 14 break points to win in 2 hours and 8 minutes. He broke Paul’s serve to open the decisive set and broke him again to finish the match.
“I think today I was a tiny bit off from time to time but the third set was great,” Medvedev said. “Even the second set was 6-1, but I made him work and I was tired at the end of the set myself. I managed to regroup myself and serve better in the third and get the win, which is a great feeling.”
No. 1 seed Alexander Zverev of Germany and No. 25 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina of Spain will meet in Saturday’s other semifinal.
–Field Level Media
