The Victors

Rafael Jodar is a 19-year-old Spaniard who last year was a freshman on the UVA tennis team. He was ranked outside the top 500 at this time last year because he had barely played an professional tennis. He had success on the Challenger tour -- the level below the ATP -- in the fall -- but as of this January he still had never even appeared in a regular ATP tour event. So coming out of basically nowhere he's rocketed all the way up to #11 in the world, winning an event, making the final of another, and reaching the semis of the Canadian Open, which is one level below the majors, this week. If he wins it he'll be in the top ten, and destroy Boris Becker's record for fastest climb from the top 100 to the top ten, since he'll have done it in just 140 days (Becker did it in 210). But what's more impressive is his climb from outside the top 500 to the top ten. He's done this three and four times faster than Djokovic, Federer, and Nadal did, who all took three to four years to go from 500 to top ten.