Brazilian João Fonseca plays his first match this Wednesday (18) in the Next Gen Finals, a tournament that brings together the eight best tennis players under 20 years of age. In his debut, he will face Frenchman Arthur Fils, the group’s top seed. The match is scheduled to start at around 2pm, after the end of the dispute between Jakub Mensik and Learner Tien.
Fonseca debuts in the tournament at the age of 18 after reaching 145th position in the ATP tennis association rankings this year. He started the year in 727th place, but jumped positions in the season when he reached the quarterfinals of the ATP 500, at the Rio Open.
Debuting against Fils will not be a trivial task, although the opponent was defeated by Fonseca at the Rio Open. The Frenchman is 20th in the ATP rankings and was the top seed, treated as the “group of death” of the tournament, whose athletes are more competitive.
Mensik, from Czechia, and Tien, from the United States, are the other opponents in the Brazilian’s group. They rank 48th and 122nd in the ATP rankings, respectively.
In the opposite bracket, there are the Chinese Juncheng Shang (50th), the Frenchman Luca Van Assche (128th), and the Americans Alex Michelsen (41st) and Nishesh Basavareddy (138th).
The total prize pool distributed by the tournament is US$2.05 million (R$12.52 million, at current prices). For participating, each player receives US$150,000 (R$916,000). The champion can pocket a prize of approximately US$900,000 (R$6.07 million).
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The grand final will be on December 22nd. The tournament is broadcast on the ESPN 2 channel and Disney+ streaming.
