For a couple of years now Joao Fonseca has been hyped up to be a future superstar on the ATP World Tour. He was taking practice sets off Carlos and Ruud at World Tour Finals at 17 and shot up the rankings into the top 25. But this year the powerhouse Brazilian has lost both of his first round matches to players ranked much lower – Eliot Spizzirri at AO and Alejandro Tabilo in Buenos Aires 67 in the third. Fonseca was defending champion in Argentina and the points drop has Fonseca ranked 38 now.
A year ago at age 18, Fonseca was actually on the ranking and results trajectory pace of Roger Federer but stagnated results over he last nine months have slowed the progression. Fonseca will turn 20 in August. At 19 Federer was ranked 29 and at 20 Federer reached 13 in the world. Fonseca was at 24 in Nov. 2025 but his slow start this year is a setback. You could see how important last week was for Fonseca by the anguished, stressed look on his dad’s face in the final minutes of the close loss to Tabilo which came down to a few points.
Similar to young Federer, Fonsecahas flirted with greatness and disappointments. At some point it’s all going to come together for Fonseca and he will figure it out. He will find the solution of how to keep those nuclear baseline strikes inside the lines in the money moments of the big matches. There is no doubt about that.
The skeptic’s and cynic’s opinions that Fonseca is buckling under too much pressure and expectations from the tennis establishment to be the South American franchise and the third man Djokovic figure to crash the Sinner Alcaraz party hold weight. And no expert can understand how much more mental baggage Fonseca has to deal with aside from just taking care of business with the rest of the hungry and driven ATP players.
Fonseca already has won two ATP titles – Federer only won one before age 20.
Fonseca will try to get his career back on track in Rio where he will face 31 year old ,206 ranked qualifier Thiago Monteiro in first round.
Brazil · Joao Fonseca · on · Rio · Yonex