Long after the chant of his name died, Joao Fonseca stayed on the clay in the 7th House.
Fonseca, holding the black mark and his game baseball cap, now backwards, suddenly looks like an 18-year-old player who has gone far beyond his years in his game, with Fonseca posing for selfies with dozens of fans. He signed autographs for children and adults - in tennis, hats, shirts and anything that was placed in front of him. As he finished with all the fans on one side of the court, he headed to the other side and seemed to start reaching out to everyone who stayed.
His whole smile was wide-ranging, looking like a teenager, just excited for his first French public.
But his match in the first round of Tuesday told a different story. In a clash with Hubert Hurkacz, the 30th seed of the tournament and a former Wimbledon semifinalist, Fonseca dominated. He gained control early - breaking Hurkacz in the third game of the opening ceremony - from there there was little chance.
In front of the crowd of sounds at each available seat in the 1,500 capacity court, fans waving Brazilian flags, lined up on the top railings, and hundreds more waiting outside in hopes of peeping, Fonseca proves why he has long been considered the next superstar in tennis. In just one hour and 40 minutes, he defeated Hurkacz 6-2, 6-4, 6-2.
Although Fonseca told reporters Tuesday that just entering the second round was a "dream come true", his match against Pierre-Hugues Herbert will now be one of the most coveted seats in this week's tournament. Fonseca will play in every game, and every highlight shot and every victory against the top-ranked opponent will only continue to push the great teenager to a new reputation. But he sounds ready.
"The expectation will come. People will talk to other people, other players, and compare (me)," Vonseca said after beating Hulkax. “It is great to be with good people for my mindset, being with good people, helping me maintain the good mentality I need. I need to do my best (I can () improve my daily routine, stay healthy with good people, stay healthy and not focus on expectations.
"I did a great job, but sometimes the pressure came up. It's normal. You need to deal with it."
Fonsecanon💥#RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/tebhba3f2f
— Roland-Garros (@RolandGarros) May 27, 2025
For those who follow him on a short but exciting journey on tennis, Fonseca's heroism to the court seven crowd is nothing new.
Fonseca officially won the U.S. Open Boys Championship in 2023, and then finished No. 1 in the world the same year. He became the first Brazilian player in history to end in the highest ranking, attracting the attention of well-known figures in the sport. He was asked to compete in the end-of-year ATP final as a partner like Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner and Daniil Medvedev.
Just three months later, Fonseca won its first victory in the ATP Tour - defeating the seventh-seeded Arthur Fils with a 6-0, 6-4 victory in the Rio Rio Open, Fonseca's hometown, 6-0, 6-4 victory. He continued to reach the quarterfinals of the Class 500 event, playing like football throughout the week. His ranking soared. Originally scheduled to compete at the University of Virginia starting in fall 2024, Fonseca decided to give up his college qualification and become a professional.
The excitement around him continued to build.
Fonseca was the first to win the tour to win the tour, and as the season progressed, he continued to stand out among many other "youngest" distinctions.
He won his first Challenger Championship in August – the youngest player in the season won the victory – and steadily climbed the rankings. By the end of 2024, he competed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in the next generation ATP final, featuring the top eight men aged 20 and under. Fonseca is the youngest player in the field, with the lowest ranking and 145th place. He won.
Although few others doubt it, victory is a test of Vonneka.
"It's very important for me to see me on the right path," Fonseca later told ESPN. "It's great to be able to compete with the top eight best men under the age of 20 just to see how they're doing, and to be able to win the championship and have a super cool experience."
Even his distant peers could not hide their admiration.
"I personally think it's just the beginning of his rankings and showing his true potential," 2021 French Open finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas told reporters next week. "I think we'll see big things about him in the next few years."
Just a few weeks later, Fonseca made good demands on Tsitsipas’s claims. After winning three qualifying matches, Fonseca is eagerly looking forward to the main draw at the Australian Open. In his first round, against No. 9 seed and 10-time Grand Slam quarterfinalist Andrey Rublev, Andrey Rublev ensured his formal introduction to the tennis world was a memorable victory with 7-6 (1), 6-3, 7-6 (7-6 (5).
The crowd - many of them wearing Brazilian football jerseys - roared after the game, and he celebrated like an experienced veteran. He later said that this was his first time participating in the "Hoig Stadium".
He lost the next match in Lorenzo Sonego's five-set battle, but after the Melbourne performance, he beat the top 100.
His momentum is more than that. In his next match, Fonseca went from a promising prodigy to a current star, his first ATP title in his thriving career at the Argentina Open. He became the youngest Brazilian player in history, won a tour victory and the fourth ATP player to win the championship this century, behind Kei Nishikori, Rafael Nadal and Alcaraz.
Even though Fonseca has always had huge goals for himself, he was surprised even by the outcome.
"I wish I could go so far, but not so fast," Fonseca told ESPN a few weeks later while sitting in the players' lounge in India's Wells. “I worked hard for it, but, it was faster than I thought.”
The 14-time French Open champion was asked about only one current player in Nadal's press conference after a commemoration of him. This is not Alcaraz or Iga Swiatek, who was the dominant champion who had attended the ceremony, nor is it any other favorite to win the 2025 championship, but Fonseca.
"He is a very young player and he has a very good career," Nadal said. "He has a great future ahead. I wish him all the best. I met him a few times. It seems that he has a good interaction with his family and the people next to him. He is well educated. I really hope he has a great future ahead."
Nadal's problem is hardly anomaly. It feels like every top player has been asked about Fonseca recently. Coco Gauff herself is a recent teenage phenomenon, claiming she has been on the fonseca train since the early days. Alcaraz, another former teenage prodigy who transformed into Superstar, said Fonseca's "potential is huge" and praised his "real, very high" level.
Even the once-emerging star himself was impressed by what he saw.
"He seems to handle it well (expect and attention)," Djokovic said. "I mean, I don't know him personally, but from what I see on the court, not only how he plays, but also how he acts and the people around him, it seems to have a good balance, professionalism, professionalism and dedication, just like we've seen with Alcaraz in the past few years, he does have the potential to be a superstar of this game."
For Fonseca, who is still only 18, it is sometimes surreal because he knows who he is, not to mention who he is, not to mention talking about him so highly. He is still used to seeing players like Grigor Dimitrov and Alex de Minaur on the driving field, but sometimes it's all not true. His competition attracts a huge, almost capacity crowd around the world, often with many enthusiastic Brazilian fans, flags and yellow and green gear. At the Miami Open, his atmosphere was so uplifting that when he entered the third round, Fonseca later said he was like "in Brazil."
On Tuesday, he estimated that "about 80% of the crowd was Brazilian" in Game 7 and called it "super friendly".
He still can't believe this completely when someone stops him from taking pictures, but every game becomes more and more normal for him - he's always happy to do it.
"Three years ago, I was the kid who asked the photos," Fonseca said. "I know what that means. It's a dream for people to be inspired by me now."
Despite the increasing enthusiasm around him, Fonseca and his family have temporarily tried to make it as normal and relaxed as possible. While agencies like Roger Federer's Team8 have famously tried to sign him, he currently refuses to have official agents. Instead, he relies on his parents - his father Christiano, the founder and CEO of Brazilian hedge funds - to play the role for him.
He led Franco Davin as a member of his team earlier this spring, coaching Juan Martin del Potro to a public victory in 2009, but Fonseca's main coach remains Guilherme Teixeira, who first met at the Rio de Janeiro Country Club and began training with him at the age of 12. Fonseca's inner circle is very small, and he likes it. The people around him remain rooted and focused on keeping the course.
Like most young players, especially those who have achieved so much, Fonseca has a huge dream for his career. But he insisted that he was only thinking about the next step, knowing that this would be what got him into the end goal. Currently, he focuses on the main draws of every Grand Slam event this season and improves his ranking so he can compete in as many Masters in the 1000 and 500 levels of competitions as possible.
He will have a chance to play against French traveler Herbert on Thursday, his next match, for the first Grand Slam. Tuesday's win will likely make him the top ranking for the new career in No. 57, while another win will push him out of the top 50. Jack Draper, No. 5 seed or beloved Frenchman Gael Monfils will wait in 32 rounds.
Fonseca admits that he sometimes struggles with the weight of external pressure. It made him nervous on the court and took some of his fun away, he said. But he said he had found his way back and was ready to appreciate his time in Paris. How long. No matter how many people are watching and projecting what this means for his future.
“I feel very comfortable now,” Fonseca said. "I'm very happy in court. Have fun and have fun."