When is the right time to pin your hopes on a promising tennis player?
People were already imagining Carlos Alcaraz’s future when he was 10 years old, the age at which Babolat and other big racquet brands start distributing equipment and gifts. At “Les Petits As”, the main tournament for junior players aged 14 and under in France, any potential talent who accumulates games, sets and matches will already have an agent whispering in their parents’ ear, if they don’t have a signed contract.
Based on these criteria, having faith in João Fonseca, the calm Brazilian teenager with light curly hair who can already serve at 140 mph (225 km/h), seems like a very conservative bet.
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Some additional numbers: At age 18, he is the youngest player to participate in the ATP Next Gen Finals in Jeddah, Saudi Arabiaa competition for the best male players aged 20 and under. And at 1.85m tall, Fonseca is in the ideal zone — not too tall, not too short — of players who have won the most Grand Slams in the last decade.
Fonseca grew up idolizing Roger Federer, which is part of the reason why his main sponsor is On, the Swiss sporting goods manufacturer in which Federer has a significant stake. On hired Fonseca, who is from Rio de Janeiro, two years ago, when he was just 16 years old.
“They said it would be me, Iga Swiatek and Ben Shelton,” Fonseca recalled during an interview last month. “Of course I said yes.”
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Perhaps Fonseca’s business acumen is as precocious as his tennis talent. On’s share price was $17.36 two years ago. Now it’s around $55. His contract allows him to travel with a physical therapist full-time; it also put him on the practice court with 22-year-old Shelton when they meet at the same tournaments.
The first time they met, at the 2023 Mallorca Championship, Shelton noticed that Fonseca was the rookie on the On team and suggested that they train together the next day.
“I was thinking, ‘I’m nothing and you want to train with me?’”
He won the US Open youth title in September 2023, the season in which he became the first player from Brazil to top the youth rankings. In February, he beat Arthur Fils in the first round of the Rio Open 6-0, 6-4. At that moment, the loss seemed like a huge setback for Fils, who is now ranked in the top 20 in the world and is the favorite for the Next Gen tournament, which starts today. They faced each other in the last match of the first day. Fonseca defeated Fils again, in five sets, breaking at deuce in a deciding set before closing out the match like a veteran.
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That first defeat in Brazil has become more palatable for Fils since then. Fonseca started the year ranked number 727 in the world. Now he has moved up to 145th and almost secured his first Grand Slam main draw appearance in New York in August, losing to Eliot Spizzirri — four years his senior — in three sets in the final round of qualifying.
The obvious comparison to a top player is world No. 1 Jannik Sinner, given Fonseca’s big serve, easy power from deep and his shy stance on and off the court. Fonseca moves like a midfielder, ready to destabilize his opponent when he leans into a forehand or maybe a backhand two hands on the line. It also adapts to the rhythm as when changing gears.
At the Madrid Open, Fonseca lost a set to Alex Michelsen, an American who is another rival in the under-20 category. Dominated in exchanges forehands crossed, Fonseca began to attack the balls directly through the middle, challenging Michelsen to generate angles, dripping any short ball into the corners. Michelsen failed to pass the test: Fonseca served him 6-0 to equalize the game and prevailed in the third set.
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“He is a player who can perform at his best under great pressure and has the ability to adapt quickly to different situations,” his coach Guilherme Teixeira wrote in an email. Teixeira has worked with him since he was 11 years old; Fonseca’s mother, Roberta, has been accompanying him to matches for much longer.
Roberta, who also answered questions via email, said she had never seen her son get nervous before a tennis match. She remembers him losing when he was eight or nine because he kept returning balls that were going out. He was very upset when he left the court, but as soon as he saw his mother he started begging her to sign him up for another tournament.
None of this, including qualifying for the Next Gen Finals, guarantees anything. Alcaraz and Sinner won the tournament in their tennis rise, but the competition 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 so far, was a winner. Medvedev won the US Open in 2021. Many of the eight legendary tennis players never came close.
Fonseca is on this year’s list alongside Fils and Luca Van Assche from France; Michelsen, and Nishesh Basavareddy from the USA; Jakub Mensik from the Czech Republic and Shang Juncheng from China, who is also known by the Americanized name Jerry Shang.
It’s hard to say if there are any Grand Slam finalists in this group, especially in tennis. The stylish kids in the spotlight at “Les Petits As” may be fine, but caution in the face of teenage excitement is the safest stance. Brazil has not produced a great men’s tennis player since Gustavo ‘Guga’ Kuerten, the three-time Roland Garros champion and former world No. 1 who helped revolutionize tennis with his early adoption of polyester strings.
For decades, Players from the country and the rest of South America had to overcome the fact that they were almost exclusively trained on clay. It is a much greater challenge for them than for players from other clay centers, 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 be attracted by the gravity of the much more accessible football before we talk about the influence of World Cup trophies, Ronaldo Nazário and Neymar. To play tennis in Brazil, you generally need to be a member of a private club.
Fonseca remembers traveling to Europe to compete for the first time when he was around 13 years old. He played on a public court in Germany with a fascinating view. Tennis balls seemed free and unlimited.
“In Europe, you have a lot more support,” he said.
He was lucky to be born into a wealthy family with parents who were passionate about sports. His mother flirted with professional volleyball. She and her husband, who competed in youth tennis in Brazil when he was a teenager, have run half marathons and competed in road and mountain races.
“Sport runs through our veins”
João practiced practically everything he was offered, including football, volleyball, swimming, judo, skateboarding, surfing and skiing, as well as tennis. His mother said he excelled in all of them.
By the age of six, he was scoring every goal in football tournaments for his academy while also helping out in defense. He could swim all four strokes from an early age, and his swimming club promoted him to the competitive team. He earned his purple belt in judo at age 10.
Teixeira realized Fonseca’s tennis potential when he saw him for the first time at 11 years old. The quality of his strokes, his pure contact with the ball, was far ahead of other kids his age and even older, but there was something else he noticed. Victories didn’t excite him as much and defeats didn’t make him as sad.
“On tour, you need to compete and train week after week and be able to manage your emotions,” said Teixeira. “It just resets the mind and starts again.”
In the last year, Fonseca’s first as a professional, Teixeira saw him increase this dedication. He’s treating tennis as his career for the first timeparticipating in workouts and gym sessions with what Teixeira describes as a new level of seriousness.
Here’s a typical training day schedule for him, which starts with testing his muscles to determine how hard he can push himself that day:
- 8h30: Testes
- 9am: Physiotherapy and warm-up
- 10h: Academia
- 11am: Training on the court
- 1pm: Lunch and rest
- 3pm: On the court
- 16h30: Academia
- 5:30 pm: Physiotherapy, if necessary
Teixeira said Fonseca is also paying more attention to his rest and nutrition. He is diligent with breathing exercises that can help him stay calm during matches. Improving your movement is a priority for 2025.
Fonseca is still a teenager, however. He can only spend a month away from home before tiredness and homesickness begin to set in. This season, he tried playing tournaments for four or five weeks before heading home for a few weeks of training and to see his friends and family.
He is also a teenage tennis player. His biggest challenge is consistency: figuring out how to win when he’s not playing his best. In junior tennis, the best player — the one with the best technique and the best shots — usually wins the tournament. That’s not how things work during serious competitions.
“On the professional tour, there are many players who can find solutions, and those who find more solutions during the tournaments, during the weeks, have better results,” said Fonseca. He has gone 7-7 in ATP matches this year; Not bad for an 18 year old. Sinner went 11-10 in 2019, the year he turned 18.
Fonseca has time, but for some things he is impatient, especially to let go of his supposed loyalty to clay and slow courts. Instead, he wants grass to be his best surface one day.
“I love Wimbledon,” he said. “I want to be like Sinner or (Novak) Djokovic. Those guys who play well on any surface.”
