Joao Fonseca: Why French Open win over Novak Djokovic marks arrival of 19-year-old
Fonseca has long been tipped as the next big thing and first came into the spotlight when he followed in the footsteps of Sinner and Alcaraz to win the 2024 ATP Next Gen finals, the season-ending showcase for players under 21, and barely a month later with his victory over Rublev in Melbourne.
He captured his first ATP title on the clay courts of Buenos Aires in February 2025 and then reached the third round in his French Open debut, losing to Britain’s Jack Draper. And wherever he went, a carnival of Brazilian flags followed him.
Twelve months after debuting as world No. 65 in Paris, he returned as the 28th seed, but although there were bright hopes during this period – reaching the third round at Wimbledon, a second career title at last October’s Swiss Indoors and a quarter-final at the Monte-Carlo Masters – there was a sense that he had not quite lived up to his precocious talent.
No more. In question six, Fonseca enters his second week of the major.
He went where no teenager had ever beaten Djokovic at a Grand Slam before, becoming only the sixth man to do so at any ATP Tour-level event.
He became the first player to knock out Djokovic before the quarter-finals of the French Open since Philipp Kohlschreiber in 2009, and the first player to do so at any Slam since the 2024 US Open.
“Joao Fonseca has definitely made himself known now,” Annabel Croft said on BBC Radio 5 Live. “He can proudly say he lived up to the hype because everyone was saying he hasn’t done much since the hype.
“While a few years ago all the Brazilians and South Americans rushed to the fields to watch him play, now we know why.”
“It took him time to find his feet and if he could get them going the crowd would play a very important role and it literally resulted in fireworks,” added former French Open semi-finalist Jo Konta of TNT Sports.
“This was exactly the situation Joao needed to reach this level of tennis.
“He had one of the biggest games we’ve seen in a while.”
