Surrealist: Jódar hits the track with a bag of sneakers to avoid controversy
Rafa Jódar has been in the eye of the storm in recent days following his controversy during the ATP Cincinnati 2026 debut against Denis Shapovalov over his shoelaces. During the third set, the Spanish player stopped the match twice because his shoelaces broke, which generated a lot of criticism and even anger from his opponent, so today he opted for the surreal solution of coming out with a bag containing several pairs to his match against Alejandro Tabilo.
The image of the day was this:
Rafa Jódar came with a bag full of shoes in case the shoelace issue happened again.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/Ue0NhfUjjY— José Morón (@jmgmoron) August 18, 2026
Although he does not do it on purpose, due to his sliding style on the court, it is common to see Jódar stop the match to change his shoelaces, as they break. When he is winning, no one criticizes this action, but in tight moments of a match or when he is behind on the scoreboard, as with Shapovalov, it does cause controversy. Therefore, his solution has been to come onto the court with multiple pairs to avoid further controversies surrounding his figure, though he ultimately did not have to use any other pair during the match.
Jódar does not shy away from controversy
After the match against Shapovalov, it was Jódar himself who explained to the Canadian that he did not stop the match with bad intentions, as these are moments of the game he cannot control. However, the snowball effect has become so large that any tennis player with a weak mentality could have been negatively affected by it. It is often said that big problems require big solutions, so Jódar has decided that if there were controversies today, it would not be because of that.
In case his shoelaces broke, Rafa had several pairs waiting for him to minimize the stoppage time, and rather than being affected by the controversy, he displayed a colossal level, conceding only three games against Tabilo and sealing his passage to the round of 16 in 1 hour and 15 minutes.
This is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, Surrealista: Jódar sale a pista con una bolsa con zapatillas para evitar polémicas