Bu Yunchaokete found out on a Tuesday that he’d be playing a top-15 seed on a Wednesday. By the time Wednesday was over, he’d made Open Era history and Rafael Jodar had a very bad night to explain to his coaching team.
Bu, a 24-year-old lucky loser who only got into the US Open main draw after Thanasi Kokkinakis withdrew, beat 12th-seeded Jodar 6-2, 6-1, 6-1 in one hour and 48 minutes. According to the ATP Tour’s own recap, it made Bu the first lucky loser in the Open Era to beat a top-15 seed at a Grand Slam. Jodar committed 37 unforced errors against just 15 winners and never once forced a break point on Bu’s serve, per Yahoo Sports.
Jodar wasn’t some overseeded pretender walking into this match either. The 19-year-old Spaniard had rocketed from outside the Top 100 to the brink of the Top 10 this season, reaching the Washington final, the Montreal semis, and the Roland Garros quarterfinals. That’s the resume of a genuine breakout, and it just got run over in straight sets by a player who wasn’t even supposed to be in the draw.
There’s a version of tennis math where a “lucky loser” designation means exactly what it sounds like, a player who backed into an opportunity and is expected to lose fast and go home. Bu had gone winless in six previous tries at Grand Slam level before Wednesday. Common sense says a guy with that record, thrown into a match against a rising Top 15 player with one day’s notice, isn’t the guy you bet on.
That’s exactly why this result matters more than a normal first-week upset. Seeding and rankings tell you what happened in the past. They don’t play the match. Bu didn’t need luck to win this one, he needed two hours and a level of tennis nobody scouted for, and he got both. Jodar’s season is still real. So is the scoreline.
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