Tennis in the age of “The New Two” (who came up with this name? I don’t like it) is devoid of suspense. We created a machine god to predict the future and it said Jannik Sinner’s going to win the US Open unless Carlos Alcaraz beats him again (though it neglected to mention Sinner’s recent withdrawal). We remade Harry Potter and Wuthering Heights. It’s a boring time to be a fan of anything because everything has already happened.
It’s possible that Sincaraz will dominate tennis for another 20 years. We search for plausible alternatives and wince as they meet their fate in the Sinner woodchipper. Just stick your head in here. We promise it’s safe.
But Sinner turns 25 on August 16, which is 45 in tennis years. Time remains undefeated; if—no—when a usurper materializes, we want the satisfaction of having spotted him amid the pretenders.
The process of picking your guy is fundamentally irrational. In 2007 I perused the bureaus in my parents’ bedroom for an unattended wallet or prescription pills or anything else an adult might deem worthy of concealing from a child. The Australian Open played on TV. Onscreen, a lanky man with curly hair slapped a backhand into the net and doubled over in agony. From his chest or soul emerged a sound I’d never heard before on a tennis court—it was somewhere between a groan and a sob—my knees buckled—I sat to watch the rest of the match.
Andy Murray was only 19 then; I was 13 and ignorant of the psychological process of projecting onto a stranger. I saw in Murray the anger I stifled in myself.
I’ve refined my methodology since 2007. Of course I consider statistical data, but statistics merely bolster what I already know: I can tell a lot about a person by the way they play tennis (debatable), and I’m an exceptional judge of character (verifiably false). I rely on the emotions a player evokes in me when I watch them compete. In psychoanalysis this reliance on emotions as data is called transference. I’ve analyzed this data and produced for you a name. That name is Rafael Jodar.
In May, Jodar played Luciano Darderi in the Italian Open quarterfinals. Jodar nibbled at Darderi’s 3-1 lead, leveling the score to 4-4. Darderi began to panic. He flapped his arms, entreating the crowd for support. He punted a tennis ball in frustration. He downed espresso shots. He won the first set tiebreak, but he looked spooked, as if he’d just learned when and how he’d die.
After every point, regardless of outcome, Jodar’s gaze shifted downwards; he communed with some serene, unseen entity. He’d extend an index finger to request a towel to wipe the ever-accumulating sweat from his face and arms. He rarely looked to his box, a space occupied solely by his coach and father, Rafael Jodar Sr.
Midway through the second set, while running to hit a backhand, Jodar slipped. For a moment he was an airborne tangle of limbs (Jodar is 6’3 and 154 lbs), and then a stick figure prostrate in red dirt. Though I’d only known he’d existed for 45 minutes, I felt a tug of fear. What if he’s injured? Jodar stood, toweled himself off, and won the second set.
Darderi won the match. Does that matter? By the time Jodar was sprawled on the clay, I was already sold. This is the guy.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to grasp the importance of the serve in professional tennis. If you can’t break someone’s serve, you’ll end up trading service games until you get to a tiebreak—a scenario that favors powerful servers. Jodar’s return game win percentage hovers around 29%, a statistic that rivals that of Sinner and Alcaraz. The combination of aggressive return game and equanimity prevents even the most wily players from building momentum against him. If Sinner is a woodchipper, Jodar is a lhydraulic press from an attention-hacking Instagram video. The initial effect is subtle, until his opponent buckles and splatters everywhere. At the Washington Open he dispatched Fils and Musetti. Fritz beat Jodar in the final but lost his first round match at the Montreal Open two days later. Meanwhile, thanks to an arcane strategy called “being 19,” Jodar recovered quickly enough to flatten Moutet, Lehecka, and Musetti again—only faster.
Jodar played at University of Virginia for one year before turning pro. Joao Fonseca, the 19-year-old Brazilian tennis phenom, would’ve been Jodar’s teammate had he not joined the tour in 2024. I first saw Fonseca play at the French Open, which opened to coincide with my ten-year college reunion. Attending a reunion is a mistake for many reasons, not least because they’re structurally incompatible with watching tennis all day. I spent Saturday morning watching Jodar struggle to defeat Alex Michelsen. I was rattled—such is the power of transference. I’m ashamed to admit that I turned to Fonseca’s match against Djokovic in search of a fallback should the Spaniard disappoint me.
Instead of networking with my successful, extroverted classmates, I watched Fonseca battle Djokovic for five sets. Sometimes, one such classmate would join me on the couch for a few games, and I’d feel compelled to explain who Fonseca was and why this was an historic moment I refused to abandon for a crowded bar and people asking me what I’ve been “up to” the last ten years (I went to medical school).
As the sole Brazilian in the top 100, Fonseca feeds off the enthusiasm of a rabid fanbase, creating an intimidating positive feedback loop. His shots are varied and unpredictable—a contrast to Jodar, who’s known for consistency and low shot variance. Naturally, this dichotomy invites comparisons.
“I’m not sure why, but it feels lazy to compare Fonseca and Jodar to Alcaraz and Sinner,” I say to my partner. We were watching Fonseca bulldoze a distraught Casper Ruud in Montreal.
“There’s always one calm guy and one flashy guy,” he replies. He thinks he knows a lot about tennis now because I always have it on TV. “Here’s the lineage: Federer-Sinner-Jodar. Nadal-Alcaraz-Fonseca.” I narrow my eyes at him. It’s too neat. And also stupid.
“And there has to be a third guy,” he adds. “Some third guy who’s like, kinda weird and vying for recognition.”
I don’t know about all that. But it doesn’t hurt to track a third guy. Logically this spot belongs to Jakub Mensik; I don’t know how weird he is, but he’s one of three people to defeat Sinner this year. But I’m partial to Flavio Cobolli, the first-time French Open finalist. He has the air of someone who’s out of their depth but is thrilled to be included.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter who you pick. We also know who’s going to win. Until one day he doesn’t.
Bria Adimora Godley is a psychiatrist and writer based in Brooklyn. Her memoir, No Acute Distress, is forthcoming from Algonquin Books in 2027.
