Rafael Jódar makes Grand Slam debut at the US Open

According to Infobae, Rafael Jódar (born in Madrid on September 17, 2006, so 19 years old) starts his very first Grand Slam main draw this Tuesday, September 1, 2026, at Flushing Meadows, where he arrives ranked 13th on the ATP list and seeded 12th. That is a striking status for a debutant, and here is where the Spanish outlets converge on the same story from different angles. This is a press review: we are simply gathering what the Madrid sports desks are reporting today, source by source, on a name that is climbing fast.

On the opponent, MARCA leads with the twist: Jódar was drawn to face the Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis in the first round, but Kokkinakis withdrew and was replaced by Chinese lucky loser Bu Yunchaokete. Cross-checking against Wikipedia adds context that the sports pages skip over: Bu is a Chinese player sitting around 152nd (a figure dated May 4, 2026), already a first-round presence at the US Open in both 2024 and 2025. One caveat we will not paper over: the exact reason for Kokkinakis pulling out was not confirmed by any source we consulted, and Bu's precise ranking on September 1 remains unverified.

The weather is the other thread, and the ATP Tour is the outlet to follow on it: the site reports that the tournament has seen several stoppages on the outdoor courts over recent days, including a Sunday cancellation and a Tuesday postponement, which left the Jódar versus Bu match under a real rain threat. Infobae narrows the setting further, noting that Jódar and Paula Badosa were both due on the same day on the Grandstand court, nicknamed the "Snoop Dogg court." As of our collection, the actual outcome, score and real playing time after the rain were not yet known.

Why is this trending in Spain today? Infobae lays out the season that built the hype: a final in Washington, a semifinal in Montreal, the last 16 in Cincinnati (beaten by Cobolli), an ATP 250 title in Marrakech, a semifinal at the Conde de Godó, quarterfinals in Madrid, Rome and Roland-Garros, and a third round at Wimbledon. A member of his team, Alejandro García, told Infobae that Jódar "lleva muchos partidos jugados y viene con mucha confianza" (he has played a lot of matches and arrives full of confidence). The US Open's official site frames the stakes best: having started 2026 down at 168th in January, Jódar is in position to become the first teenager to break into the ATP top 10 since Holger Rune in 2022.

Sources : Infobae, MARCA, Wikipedia, ATP Tour, US Open (usopen.org), Google Trends.