Luis Augusto Queiroz Miguel was born into a family of tennis players. The father plays; the older brother too. Tennis was the language of the house where the youngest, who everyone calls Guto, grew up in, in Goiânia, where he was born on February 26, 2009. Seventeen years later, he is in the Roland Garros youth final and has already secured the number 1 position in the world rankings in the category.
The story begins in Goianésia, a city in the interior of Goiás where the family lived when Guto took his first steps in the sport. It was there that he started playing, at the age of five, hitting balls against a wall. The father taught. Brother Luís Felipe, five years older, trained alongside.
When the talent became evident, the difficult decision came. At the age of 14, Guto left Goiânia alone to train professionally in Brasília, where he spent eight months living in family homes before his parents decided to move permanently to the capital. The bet was made by both sides: the family left their hometown, and the boy bet on a career that still had nothing guaranteed.
In Brasília, he started training with the duo that accompanies him to this day: Santos Dumont Guimarães, 57, and Kike Granjeiro. For Guimarães, reaching the final in Paris is no surprise. “I expected it. We’ve been working for this for a long time. Its development was absurd, it went up very quickly. I think everything was just in time to happen,” he told Sheetby phone, hours before the decision.
The jump, in fact, was quick. In 2024, at the age of 15, Guto qualified for the youth Roland Garros for the first time. In 2025, he reached the semifinals of the US Open youth and won the J500 in Mérida — becoming the first Brazilian to lift a trophy in this category since Orlando Luz, in 2015. He also accumulated time on the court alongside Holger Rune, former top 5 in the world, and spent a week at Rafael Nadal’s training center in Spain.
In 2026, the pace accelerated. He won the J300 in Traralgon, Australia, in singles and doubles. Reached the quarterfinals of the junior Australian Open. He began his transition to the professional circuit with doubles titles in Challenger, alongside his brother Luís Felipe and other partners. In February, he received an invitation to compete in the Rio Open —ATP 500, the biggest tournament in South America. He lost in his debut, but never failed to impress. He was the same age as João Fonseca when the Rio native debuted in the same tournament, in 2023.
Fonseca, in fact, is a declared reference. The two trained together in Brazil. Now, with Fonseca, who reached the quarterfinals of Roland Garros in the professional men’s tournament, and Guto in the youth final, Brazilian tennis occupies two floors of the same tournament at the same time.
This Friday (5), Guto won the semifinal in an entirely Brazilian match — the first of its kind in the history of a youth Grand Slam. He defeated Leonardo Storck from Mato Grosso by 6/1, 3/6 and 6/2, in 1h49.
With a place in the final, he mathematically guaranteed the leadership of the ITF (International Tennis Federation) youth ranking — a position that will be made official in this Monday’s update (8). He becomes the fourth Brazilian to reach the top of the category, after Tiago Fernandes (2010), Orlando Luz (2015) and Fonseca himself (2023).
This Saturday (6), on the Simonne-Mathieu court, no earlier than noon in Paris (7am Brasília time), Guto will face the American Michael Antonius, 13th seed, who eliminated Keaton Hance by 6/3 and 6/1. The two have already faced each other once on the youth circuit, with the American winning.
What is at stake is more than a title. Guto will be only the fourth Brazilian to compete in a youth singles final at Roland Garros. Before him, Edison Mandarino (1959), Thomaz Koch (1962 and 1963) and Luís Felipe Tavares (1967) reached the decision. None took the trophy.
An eventual title would also place Guto in the restricted group of Brazilian Grand Slam youth singles champions, currently formed by Tiago Fernandes (2010 Australian Open), Thiago Wild (2018 US Open) and Fonseca (2023 US Open). “Roland Garros was a dream since I was little. Now I’m in a final,” he told RFI after the victory. “I’m already guaranteed number 1 in the world. A lot of things happening at the same time.”
For Guimarães, what sustains the rise are three qualities. “Guto is very strong physically, with very powerful strikes, and he reads the game. He does these three things very well,” he said. Outside the court, the coach paints another picture. “He’s a happy, relaxed person, good people. He likes to play. A nice kid.”
Pressure, says the coach, is the newest chapter in this story. “Now he’s feeling a lot of pressure, but he handles it well. There are ups and downs, like all young people. There’s a lot of pressure on him, it all happened very quickly”, he explained. “At 14 he was already playing in the ITF under-18 final. It was one thing after another.”
The next step has already been mapped out. Guto has a professional ranking — he is ranked 829th in singles and 177th in doubles on the ATP — and the idea is to accelerate his turnaround.
“Now we’re heading to the professional ranks. The focus is to finish the year as number 1 in the youth world and, next year, enter the professional ranks once and for all, in the qualifiers,” said Guimarães.
Even with the final of a Grand Slam ahead, the coach insists that the ceiling is far away. “He’s young, he’s just turned 17. There’s a lot to improve. His process has always been going up and up. And now he’s going to crown a youth career.”
Regarding what’s missing for the definitive leap, Guto summed up, to RFI, in the simplest way: “Hard work.”
