Nineteen-year-old Spaniard Rafael Jodar continued his breakout run at the men's National Bank Open presented by Rogers, defeating France's Arthur Fils 7-6 (5), 6-3 Tuesday afternoon at IGA Stadium to advance to his first ATP Masters 1000 semifinal.
The victory improved Jodar's record to 34-13 in his debut ATP Tour season.
After opening the year ranked No. 168, the Spaniard has surged to No. 11 in the live ATP rankings.
Jodar also became the first man born in 2006 or later to reach the semifinals of an Masters event, building on back-to-back quarterfinal appearances at the clay-court tournaments in Madrid and Rome.
Jodar will face Brandon Nakashima in the semifinals on Wednesday night on Sportsnet ONE and Sportsnet+.
The American and No. 28 seed quickly dispatched the No. 19 seed Luciano Darderi of Italy 6-2 6-3 to open quarterfinal action on Tuesday.
After a five-minute opening hold, Jodar seized the early advantage by breaking Fils in the following game.
The Spaniard, however, squandered five break-point opportunities across Fils's next two service games, and those missed chances proved costly. The No. 18 seed broke back in the seventh game to level the opening set.
Play was then suspended with Jodar leading 5-4 after a brief rain shower passed over Centre Court. Following a one-hour delay, the match resumed with Jodar capturing the tiebreak on his third set point.
While Jodar and Fils exchanged breaks of serve in the third and fourth games of the second set, respectively, the Spaniard pulled ahead for good come the seventh game on his way to the straight sets victory.
Nakashima will contest a Masters semifinal for the first time in his career. The San Diego native had never surpassed the fourth round in his 35 prior Masters main-draw appearances.
“I’m super happy with making my first semifinal,” said Nakashima. “It was a goal of mine at the beginning of the year to try to do well at one of these Masters 1000 tournaments. To be able to do it for the first time here is really special.”
Nakashima has won seven of his eight matches played on hard courts since Wimbledon, his lone defeat coming in the semifinals of the ATP 500 tournament last week in Washington, D.C.
“My serve and my forehand have been really in form the last couple weeks,” said Nakashima. “It’s something that we have been working on a lot with my team and everybody. Obviously, just the overall level of confidence is really high right now.”
The win, Nakashima’s 150th career victory at the ATP Tour level, also enables him to move up to 25th in the ATP live rankings, a new career high.
The American won all four of his service games in the first set, while also making good on two of his four break point opportunities during the 26-minute opener.
Nakashima obtained the lone break of the second set come the eighth game to go up 5-3. He would later hold serve to take the match in just one-hour seventeen minutes.
Both early matches were initially scheduled to take place on Monday night, but were postponed to Tuesday afternoon due to thunderstorms in the Montreal area.
Nakashima credits the modified start time as a potential factor behind his win.
“Being able to play during the day today (Tuesday), the conditions helped me a little bit more,” said Nakashima. “It kind of sped up the pace of play, compared to the night where it kind of slows down a little bit. Maybe it helped me on the serve a little bit today.”
Nakashima hit 11 aces in the match, compared to just two for Darderi.
Tuesday night’s evening session will be headlined by No. 5 seed and defending National Bank Open champion Ben Shelton. The American and only top-10 player left in the singles draw faces the only other Masters 1000 champion left in the draw in Czechia’s Jakub Mensik.
The No. 13 seed triumphed at the 2025 Miami Open, defeating Novak Djokovic in straight sets for his biggest title to date.
No. 12 seed Learner Tien of the United States closes out quarterfinal play Tuesday night against World No. 63 Daniel Merida of Spain.
The quarterfinal lineup at the National Bank Open marks the first time in history the final eight singles players at an ATP Tour event were all born in the 2000s.
