Rising star Fonseca equals his best Grand Slam result at Wimbledon
It was a significant day for Brazil’s Joao Fonseca on Wednesday as he reached the third round at Wimbledon and equalled his best Grand Slam result by dispatching Jenson Brooksby of the United States.
By prevailing 6-4 5-7 6-2 6-4, Fonseca ensured he will become the youngest men’s player to contest the third round at Wimbledon since 2011 when Bernard Tomic reached the quarter-finals. The teenager is aged 18 years and 326 days.
Fonseca is the first Brazilian player to reach the men’s singles third round at Wimbledon since 2010 when Thomaz Bellucci did so. The teenager will also become the 10th Brazilian man to compete in the third round at Wimbledon during the Open Era.
The Brazilian chalked up his maiden Grand Slam main draw match-win at the Australian Open in January when he dispatched former world No. 5 Andrey Rublev having navigated three rounds of qualifying. He followed up by reaching the third round at Roland Garros in May.
Taking a step back, Fonseca is steeped in the ITF player pathway having reached No.1 in the ITF World Tennis Tour boys’ rankings in September 2023 following his triumph at the US Open Junior Championships in New York. He finished 2023 as the year-end No. 1 boy and was named an ITF World Champion.
His talent had come to the fore well before his US Open triumph, however. He spearheaded Brazil’s first ever Davis Cup Juniors triumph in November 2022 as they became just the second South American nation to lift the trophy.
The teenager’s rise since then has been meteoric and in August 2024 he sealed his first professional title after conquering all before him at the Lexington Challenger. Just over a month later, he made his Davis Cup debut for Brazil.
Fonseca recorded some notable victories for his nation as Brazil battled to reach the Davis Cup Final 8, while in December he became the second-youngest player – after Jannik Sinner – to win the Next Gen ATP Finals.
That said, this year has been his breakthrough season. Fonseca, who has previously received financial assistance through the ITF-operated Grand Slam Player Development Programme to assist with his development, has won two ATP Challenger events and his maiden ATP Tour at the Argentina Open. He has also started to make his presence felt on some of the game’s biggest stages and risen to No. 54 in the world.