Hype confirmed: Jodar comes back from two sets down to reach his first Grand Slam quarter-final
Rafael Jodar (No 27), 19, came back from two sets to love down to beat compatriot Pablo Carreño Busta 4-6, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 in 3h 42min – his first Grand Slam quarter-final.
Rafael Jodar, Roland-Garros 2026 | © M. Baucher / PsNewz
Rafael Jodar, the 19-year-old Spaniard and 27th seed, came back from two sets to love down to beat his 34-year-old compatriot Pablo Carreño Busta 4-6, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 in three hours and 42 minutes on Sunday afternoon. Jodar reaches the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam for the first time in his career, in two attempts, and dispatches what had been one of the more poignant comeback stories of the men’s tournament.
The win sends Jodar into territory the Open Era has produced sparingly. He becomes the fifth man this century to reach the Roland-Garros quarter-finals on his Grand Slam main-draw debut at this tournament, joining Martin Verkerk (2003), Rafael Nadal (2005), Jannik Sinner (2020) and Holger Rune (2022) – the only four others to manage it since the year 2000. He his the 13th in the Open Era overall.
He has now won 19 of his last 22 matches and 18 of his 21 clay-court matches in 2026, tying world No. 1 Jannik Sinner for the most clay-court wins on tour this year (both 18). His 17 wins from his first 25 ATP main-draw matches is a faster start than Rafael Nadal, Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djoković, Sinner or Roger Federer managed at the same stage of their careers.
Jodar arrives in the round of eight having beaten two players in five sets – Michelsen, and now Carreño Busta – at the close of a stretch that began in Marrakech in April with his maiden ATP Tour title and has carried him through Barcelona semi-finals, back-to-back Masters 1000 quarter-finals in Madrid and Rome, and now into the last eight at his first Roland-Garros.
Jodar winning three times in 5 sets
The contest split into two halves separated by a single decision in the Spaniard’s chair. For the first two sets, Carreño Busta – the former world No. 10 who had spent the past two years rebuilding from outside the world’s top 1,000 after right-elbow surgery — produced the kind of high-quality clay tennis that had carried him through the early rounds.
Jodar led 4-1 in the opening set on one break of his own, and from there everything turned. Carreño Busta won the next nine games in a row across the close of set one and the start of set two, breaking Jodar four times along the way and forcing the wave of unforced errors that suggested the teenager was running out of answers. He took set one 6-4 and led 4-0 in the second. Jodar levelled the set back to 4-2, then 5-3 before Carreño Busta closed it out 6-4.
The 6-4 second set was the bridge.
Off the cap
It was the decision Jodar made between sets that changed everything. The Spaniard returned for the third set having taken off the cap he had been wearing through the first two – people who loves superstition will love the story. From 2-1 up without a break in the third, he found another level. He broke Carreño Busta to lead 3-1, broke him again, and won five games in a row to take the third set 6-1. The fourth and fifth followed the same pattern. He won 18 of the final 22 games of the match.
The closing game brought the only fragment of nerves the comeback had cost him. Serving for the match, he reached 40-0 – three consecutive match points – and converted on his fifth, after Carreño Busta produced two brief recoveries to deuce.
For Carreño Busta, who had climbed 23 ranking places this week alone and looked, for two sets, like a man who knew how to win a Grand Slam quarter-final, the end was hard to absorb. He finished the contest having saved only three of 11 break points and won 4 of 14 himself. The serve had held in the early sets; once Jodar found the return, the rest of his game followed.
Jodar will face second seed Alexander Zverev in the quarter-finals.
