João Fonseca will follow the Brazilian team’s games in the first phase of the World Cup away from home. The tennis player from Rio (25th in the world) traveled on Thursday (11) to play on European grass. The best tennis player in Brazil, he is looking to get his best place in the world rankings starting next week.
The athlete will compete, starting on Monday (15), in Germany, in the ATP 500 in Halle. Afterwards, he will be in the main draw of the ATP 250 in Eastbourne, England, and, at the end of the month, he will play Wimbledon, the third Grand Slam of the season. All are played on grass.
His first opponent will be Yannik Hanfmann, a 34-year-old German veteran who is ranked 59th (his best position was 45th) and has never won an ATP title. Hanfmann has already played in three finals on the circuit, the most recent this year, in Viña del Mar, Chile, when he lost to Italian Luciano Darderi by 2 sets to 0, on clay.
This will be the first duel between the two. Whoever wins takes the winner of the game between German Alexander Zverev, current Roland Garros champion, and Czech Vit Kopriva.
At 19 years old, Fonseca achieved his best position in the ranking to date, 24th place, in November last year, and this month he will have few points to defend in the first two tournaments.
Last year, he fell at his debut in Halle. At Eastbourne he was eliminated in the second round and received 25 points.
The British Grand Slam is where he will have the most points to defend (100): in 2025 he went to the third round.
The descending order of importance (in points and prizes) of the professional tennis circuit tournaments governed by the ATP is as follows: Grand Slam, ATP Finals, Masters 1000, ATP 500 and ATP 250.
Fonseca is coming off a great campaign at Roland Garros. On French clay, he reached the quarterfinals and, along the way, eliminated Serbian Novak Djokovic, the biggest winner of Grand Slams in the history of men’s tennis, with 24 wins, and Norwegian Casper Ruud, who was once second in the rankings.
He fell to Czech Jakub Mensik, who was later eliminated by Zverev in the semi-finals. He gained 400 ATP ranking points for the campaign.
