When is the right time to pin your hopes on an up-and-coming tennis player?
People had visions of Carlos Alcaraz’s future when he was ten, the age when Babolat and the other big racket companies sometimes start handing out equipment and swag. At France’s Les Petit As, the premier tournament for juniors aged 14 and under, all players looking to win matches, sets and matches will already have an agent in their parents’ ear, if not a signed contract.
By these measures, trusting Joao Fonseca, the laid-back Brazilian teenager with the wavy, light hair who can already reach speeds of 225 km/h, seems like a pretty conservative bet.
Some more numbers. At 18, he is the youngest player to compete in the ATP Next Gen Finals in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a competition for the top-ranked men’s players aged 20 or younger. And at 185cm tall, Fonseca is in the Goldilocks zone – neither too tall nor too short – of players who have won the most Grand Slams in the past decade.
Fonseca grew up idolizing Roger Federer, which is partly why his main sponsor is On, the Swiss sports manufacturer in which Federer has a significant stake. On signed Fonseca, originally from Rio de Janeiro, two years ago, when he was only 16. .
“They said it would be me, Iga (Swiatek) and Ben Shelton,” Fonseca recalled during an interview last month. “Of course I said yes.”
Perhaps Fonseca’s business acumen is as precocious as his tennis talent. On’s stock price was $17.36 two years ago. It’s now about $55. His contract allows him to travel full-time with a physical therapist; it also put him on the practice field with Shelton, 22, when they ended up in the same tournaments.
The first time they met, at the 2023 Mallorca Championships, Shelton found out that Fonseca was the new man in the On team and suggested they practice the next day.
“I was like, ‘I’m nothing and you want to practice with me?’” Fonseca said.
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He wasn’t nothing then and he certainly isn’t nothing now. He won the US Open junior title in September 2023, the season in which he became the first player from Brazil to top the junior rankings. In February he defeated Arthur Fils in the first round of the Rio Open 6-0, 6-4. At the time, the loss seemed like a major setback for Fils, who is now ranked in the top 20 in the world and was the favorite for the Next Gen tournament, which started on December 18.
They played against each other in the last match of the first day. Fonseca defeated Fils again, in five best-of-four game sets, breaking a sudden death deuce in the final set before serving out like a veteran. He then hammered Tien and dominated all but a single game in the third set. He is in the semi-finals, while there is still a group match left.
That first defeat in Brazil has since become increasingly bearable for Fils. Fonseca started the year at number 727 in the world rankings. He is now ranked No. 145 and came within a few matches of his first Grand Slam main draw in New York last August, losing to Eliot Spizzirri – four years his senior – in three matches. sets in the final qualifying round.
Joao Fonseca in full flight in Rio de Janeiro. (Wang Tiancong/Xinhua via Getty Images)
The obvious comparison to a top player is world number 1 Jannik Sinner, given Fonseca’s big serve, easy baseline strength and shy demeanor on and off the court. Fonseca hums along like a flywheel, ready to knock his opponent off their axis when he leans into a forehand, or perhaps a two-handed backhand down the line. He can also change gears.
At the Madrid Open, Fonseca was set down by Alex Michelsen, an American who is also a rival in the 20 and under group. Outplayed in forehand rallies on the court, Fonseca began marmalizing balls straight up the middle and asking Michelsen to generate angles, pinging anything too short to the corners. Michelsen failed the exam: Fonseca served him a 6-0 bagel to tie the match and won the third set.
“He is a player who can do his best under great pressure, and he has the ability to adapt quickly to different situations,” his coach Guilherme Teixeira wrote via email. Teixeira has been working with his leadership since he was 11; Fonseca’s mother, Roberta, has seen him play for much longer.
Roberta, who also answered questions by email, said she has never seen her son get nervous before a tennis match. She remembers him losing when he was eight or nine because he kept hitting volleyball balls that came back into play. He was seriously upset when he left the court, but as soon as he saw his mother he started begging her to register him for another tournament.
None of this, including qualifying for the Next Gen Finals, guarantees anything. Alcaraz and Sinner both won the prize during their climb up the tennis mountain, but the tournament also featured younger versions of Alexander Zverev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Daniil Medvedev, Taylor Fritz and Casper Ruud – all Grand Slam finalists, but only one of them a winner so far. Medvedev won the US Open in 2021. Many of the legendary eight at the end of each season have never come close.
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Fonseca is in the line-up this year alongside Fils and Luca Van Assche from France; Michelsen, Learner Tien and Nishesh Basavareddy from the US; Jakub Mensik from the Czech Republic and Shang Juncheng from China, who also goes by his Americanized name, Jerry Shang.
It’s hard to say if there are any Grand Slam finalists in that group, especially in tennis. The kids with the swag and the spots at Les Petits That may be a good thing, but caution in the face of teenage hype is the much safer attitude. Brazil hasn’t produced a top tennis player since Gustavo ‘Guga’ Kuerten, the three-time French Open champion and former world No. 1, who revolutionized tennis with his early adoption of polyester strings.
For decades, players from the country and the rest of South America have had to overcome their upbringing almost exclusively on red clay. It is a much greater challenge for them than for players from other red clay hubs such as Spain, due to the distance South Americans have to travel to find different playing surfaces and opponents. It’s no wonder that young people tend to focus on the much more accessible game of football before talking about the influence of World Cup trophies, Ronaldo Nazario and Neymar. To play tennis in Brazil you usually have to be a member of a private club.
Joao Fonseca already represented Brazil at the Davis Cup. (Emmanuele Ciancaglini/Getty Images for ITF)
Fonseca remembers traveling to Europe for the first time to compete when he was 13. He played on a public field in Germany with a picturesque view. Tennis balls appeared for free and unlimited.
“In Europe you have so much more help,” he said.
He was fortunate to be born into a wealthy family with sports-mad parents. His mother flirted with professional volleyball. She and her husband, who competed in junior tennis in Brazil as teenagers, have run half marathons and competed in road and mountain bike and adventure races.
“Sport flows through our veins,” says Roberta.
Joao played pretty much everything they offered him, including football, volleyball, swimming, judo, skateboarding, surfing and skiing, plus tennis. His mother said he excelled in all subjects.
At the age of six, he was scoring all the goals in football tournaments for his academy, while also chasing defenses. He could swim all four strokes from an early age, and his swimming club brought him onto the competitive team. He obtained his purple belt in judo at the age of 10.
Teixeira saw his tennis potential when he first saw him at the age of 11. The quality of his shots, his pure contact with the ball, was far ahead of other kids his age and older, but there was something else that stood out to him. Wins didn’t bother him that much and losses didn’t make him that sad.
“On tour you have to compete and practice and control your emotions week after week,” Teixeira said. “He just resets his mind and starts again.”
Over the past year, Fonseca’s first as a full professional, Teixeira has seen him step up that commitment. He is considering tennis as his career for the first time, taking part in training and gym sessions with what Teixeira describes as a new level of seriousness.
This is a typical training day schedule for him, which starts with testing his muscles to determine how fast he can go that day:
- 8:30 am: Testing
- 9:00 am: Physiotherapy and warm-up
- 10am: Gymnastics
- 11 a.m.: Practice on the track
- 1:00 PM: Lunch and rest
- 3 p.m.: On the track
- 4:30 PM: Gymnastics
- 5:30 PM: Physiotherapy, if necessary
Teixeira said Fonseca is also paying more attention to his rest and what he eats. He is diligent with breathing exercises that can help him stay calm during matches. Improving his footwork is high on the agenda for 2025.
However, Fonseca is still a teenager. He can only last a month or so away from home before fatigue and homesickness sets in. This season he tried to play tournaments for four to five weeks before returning home for a few weeks of training and seeing his friends and family.
Joao Fonseca reacts to winning the 2023 US Open boys’ singles title. (Sarah Stier / Getty Images)
He is also a teenage tennis player. His biggest challenge is consistency: figuring out how to win when he’s not playing at his best. In junior tennis, the better player – the one with the best technique and the best shots – usually wins the tournament. That’s not how it works during serious matters.
“In the pro tour there are many players who can find the solutions, and those who find more solutions during the tournaments get better results during the week,” Fonseca said. He went 7-7 in ATP matches this year; Not bad for an 18 year old. Sinner was 11-10 in 2019, the year he turned 18.
Fonseca has time, but he is impatient for some things, especially as he shakes the supposed loyalty to red clay and slow tracks. Instead, he wants grass to one day become his best surface
“I love Wimbledon,” he said. “I want to be like Sinner or (Novak) Djokovic. Those guys who play well on any surface.”
(Top photo: On)