The Madrid Open moved into the Round of 32 on Sunday, April 26, 2026, with Rafael Jodar, Coco Gauff and Elena Rybakina among the players drawing the sharpest attention on the day’s betting slate. Jodar, 19, returned to the spotlight after a rapid climb that has made him one of the names to watch in nava tennis.
Jodar’s rise has been steep. He was playing tennis at the University of Virginia around this time last year, then surged to No. 42 in the world in a short span and won the Grand Prix Hassan II in Morocco on clay for his first ATP title. He also reached the semifinals in Barcelona and, in Madrid, picked up his first top-10 win by beating Alex de Minaur in the Round of 64. For a player still early in his career, the sequence has pushed him into the conversation as one of Spain’s next serious clay-court threats.
Gauff arrives with form that fits the surface. She had passed Iga Swiatek to become No. 3 in the world and opened her Madrid run with a 6-3, 6-0 win. She is 2-0 in her career against Sorana Cirstea, and the two had already met as recently as Miami earlier in 2026. Gauff’s clay pedigree also carries weight: she won the French Open title in 2025, giving every match on this swing an added layer of expectation.
Rybakina brings a different kind of pressure. She won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart in her first clay event of the season and has looked comfortable enough on the surface to keep her in the frame for another deep run. She is 3-1 in her career against Zheng Qinwen and had beaten her earlier in 2026 in Doha, a matchup history that shapes the market’s view of the contest. That kind of record matters in a draw this dense, where one sharp result can change the shape of the week.
The betting angle on Sunday is built on form, not reputation alone. Jodar’s surge gives Madrid a local storyline that feels bigger than one round, while Gauff and Rybakina arrive with recent results that suggest their clay form is real. The question for the rest of the day is whether the players carrying that momentum can keep it through a tournament that has already shown how quickly one result can reset the picture.
