The ATP 500 title in Basel, Switzerland, made João Fonseca rise 18 positions in the professional tennis rankings. The 19-year-old Brazilian reached 28th place, his best position in his short career – he had finished 2024 as 145th –, and has accumulated R$13.7 million in prize money.
João Fonseca beat Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina this Sunday (26) by 2 sets to 0 (6/3 and 6/4). The Swiss title guaranteed a prize of 549 thousand dollars (around R$3 million).
With the victory, he already has the fifth best ranking of a Brazilian in history, behind Gustavo Kuerten, Thomaz Bellucci, Thomas Koch and Fernando Meligeni.
João has 25 wins and 15 losses in his career (6 to 4 in Grand Slams). In December last year, he surprised by winning the Next Gen ATP Finals, a tournament that brings together the eight best players of the season aged 20 or younger, drawing comparisons with the Spanish Carlos Alcaraz, current number 1 in the world, and the Italian Jannik Sinner, number 2, who also won the tournament at the age of 18, in 2021 and 2019, respectively.
Soon after, he added another victory, at the Challenger in Canberra, opening the year with a trophy, and went through the Australian Open qualifier, falling in the second round of the main draw of the first Grand Slam of the year.
Challenger tournaments are generally played by young people at the beginning of their careers on the professional circuit, in search of the first points for the ranking. Then there are the ATP level tournaments, divided into the 250, 500 and Masters 1000 categories, relating to the number of points distributed to the champion.
At the top of the hierarchy are the four Grand Slams — Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and US Open —, which each award 2,000 points to the winner.
In February this year, another leap forward. After leaving behind four Argentines (and a Czech), he lifted the ATP 250 cup in Buenos Aires, becoming the youngest Brazilian champion in an elite tournament on the world circuit.
He would win another trophy, in March, in Phoenix, USA, reaching the top 60 in the world for the first time, from where he hasn’t left since June. He reached the third round at the Masters 1000 in Madrid and Cincinnati, and in the Grand Slams at Roland Garros and Wimbledon.
The Brazilian’s next challenge should be at the Masters 1000 in Paris. In the first match he will face Canadian Denis Shapovalov, whom João beat in the quarterfinals in Switzerland – his rival retired in the third set, when he was trailing 4-1.
