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What’s the right moment to hitch your hopes to an up-and-coming tennis player?
People were having visions of Carlos Alcaraz’s future when he was 10, the age at which Babolat and the other big racket companies sometimes start handing out equipment and swag. At France’s Les Petit As, the premier tournament for juniors 14-and-under, any prospects racking up games, sets and matches will already have an agent in their parents’ ear, if not a signed contract.
By those measures, having faith in Joao Fonseca, the easy-going Brazilian teenager with the wavy light hair who can already hit serves at 140mph (225kmh), seems like a pretty conservative bet.
Some more numbers. At 18, he’s the youngest player to make the field for the ATP Next Gen Finals in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a competition for the top-ranked men’s players who are 20 or younger. And at 6-foot-1 (185cm), Fonseca is in the Goldilocks zone — not too tall, not too short — of players who have won most of the Grand Slams the past decade.
Fonseca grew up worshipping Roger Federer, which is part of the reason his lead sponsor is On, the Swiss sports manufacturer that Federer has a significant stake in. On signed Fonseca, who hails from Rio de Janeiro, two years ago when he was just 16.
They said it was going to be me, Iga (Swiatek) and Ben Shelton, Fonseca recalled during an interview last month. Of course I said yes.
Perhaps Fonseca’s business acumen is as precocious as his tennis talent. On’s stock price was $17.36 two years ago. It’s around $55 now. His contract lets him travel with a physiotherapist full time; it’s also gotten him onto the practice court with Shelton, 22, when they have landed at the same tournaments.
He wasn’t nothing and you want to practice with me?
He won the U.S. Open junior title in September 2023, the season he became the first player from Brazil to top the junior rankings. In February, he smashed Arthur Fils in the first round of the Rio Open, 6-0, 6-4. At the time, the loss appeared to be a major setback for Fils, who is now ranked top 20 in the world and is the favorite for the Next Gen tournament, which begins today. They played each other in the last match of the first day. Fonseca beat Fils again, in five best-of-four game sets, breaking on a sudden-death deuce in the final set before serving out like a veteran.
He is a player who can play his best under big pressure, and he has the ability to adapt fast to different situations, his coach Guilherme Teixeira wrote over email. Teixeira has been working with his charge since he was 11; Fonseca’s mother, Roberta, has watched him play for much longer than that.
Roberta, who also answered questions over email, said she has never seen her son get nervous before a tennis match. She remembers him losing when he was eight or nine because he kept volleying balls that were heading out back into play. He was seriously upset leaving the court, but as soon as he saw his mother he started begging her to sign him up for another tournament.
Joao Fonseca has already represented Brazil at the Davis Cup. (Emmanuele Ciancaglini / Getty Images for ITF)
For decades, players from Brazil and the rest of South America have had to overcome their rearing almost exclusively on red clay. It’s a far greater challenge for them than for players from other red clay hubs like Spain because of the distance that South Americans have to travel to find different playing surfaces and opponents. There is no wonder that young people tend to gravitate to the far more accessible game of soccer instead, before getting to talk about the influence of World Cup trophies, Ronaldo Nazario and Neymar. To play tennis in Brazil, you mostly have to be a member of a private club.
Sport runs through our veins, Roberta said.
Joao played just about anything they offered to him, including soccer, volleyball, swimming, judo, skateboarding, surfing, and skiing, plus tennis. His mother said he excelled at all of them.
At six, he would score all the goals at soccer tournaments for his academy while also chasing back on defense. He could swim all four strokes from an early age, and his swim club bumped him to the competitive team. He achieved his purple belt in judo at 10.
Teixeira spotted his tennis potential when he first saw him at 11. The quality of his shots, his pure contact with the ball, was far ahead of other kids his age and older, but there was something else he noticed. Wins didn’t excite him all that much and losses didn’t make him all that sad.
This is a typical training day schedule for him, which begins with tests on his muscles to determine how hard he can go that day:
* 8:30 a.m.: Tests
* 9 a.m.: Physiotherapy and warm-up
* 10 a.m.: Gym
* 11 a.m.: Practice on court
* 1 p.m.: Lunch and rest
* 3 p.m.: On court
* 4:30 p.m.: Gym
* 5:30 p.m.: Physiotherapy, if needed
He is diligent with breathing exercises that can help him stay calm during matches. Improving his footwork is high on the agenda for 2025.
Fonseca is still a teenager, though. He can only manage a month or so away from home before fatigue and homesickness set in. This season, he tried to play tournaments for four or five weeks, before returning home for a couple weeks of training and seeing his friends and family.
This is a great challenge for him, but also a big opportunity.
He is still a teenage tennis player. His biggest challenge is consistency: figuring out how to win when he isn’t playing his best. In junior tennis, the better player — the one with the best technique and the best shots — usually wins the tournament. That’s not how it shakes out during the serious stuff.
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