18-Year-Old Joao Fonseca Makes History After Saving Match Points In Buenos Aires
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Joao Fonseca made history at the 2025 Argentina Open in Buenos Aires after he beat Mariano Navone in the quarter-finals of the tournament.
Fonseca has been proving his talent for over a year now. He recorded some inspired wins over the past 12 months, but he never had a run like he's having right now at the Argentina Open in Buenos Aires.
His draw was anything but easy. In every round, the young Brazilian had to play against an Argentinian player, and it doesn't have to be said that the crowd in Buenos Aires heavily backed their players.
Battling against his opponents and against the crowd, Fonseca beat Tomas Martin Etcheverry in the first round, and he outplayed Federico Coria in the second round of the ATP 250 tournament.
His quarter-final opponent was Mariano Navone, who is a clay-court specialist like his second-round opponent. Like against Coria, Fonseca had plenty of problems early on in this match.
He quickly fell behind 1-5, and it seemed like there was no way back for him. However, the 18-year-old player managed to recover one of the lost breaks, and down 3-5, he even had three break points to get back into the set.
But Navone found a way to a set point, and he converted it to win the first set of the match 6-3. Fonseca was frustrated, and he even threw his racket. The Brazilian player was aware of how close he came to getting a chance to complete a sensational comeback.
The second set was a proper dogfight, and the weather helped as well. The match was briefly suspended because of rain, but it seemed that Navone dealt with the conditions better.
The Argentinian was up by a break twice, but even that wasn't enough to beat the teenager. Fonseca came back from 3-4 down to win the second set of this match 6-4 and force the decider.
It seemed that Navone was able to control his nerves better early in the third set as well. He broke first, and after holding his serve for the vast majority of the set, the Argentinian player had two match points at 5-3 and 40-15.
But that's when Fonseca's magical comeback started. The 18-year-old saved both break points, broke back, and created three more break point chances, which were also match points.
He used his third match point in this match to sensationally win it 3-6, 6-4, 7-5, after coming back from 3-4 down in the second set and 3-5 down in the third set, while also saving two match points.
It was a hard-fought win from Fonseca, who became the first player born in 2006 to reach the semi-finals of an ATP event. He also became the youngest Brazilian in the Open Era to reach an ATP semi-final.
On top of that, this win will also significantly help him in the ATP Rankings. Fonseca will move to his new career high. At the moment, he's projected to be ranked 82nd in the world.
After the win, he was obviously very happy. Fonseca knew he didn't play his best tennis, but he was still able to win and set up a semi-final meeting with Laslo Djere, which is what counts.
"I'm feeling amazing. It's not easy against Mariano. Just very, very happy with the way that I fought today and to be in my first semi-final."
"Those are the victories we work for. I wasn't playing my best. I fought til the end. I'm tired. But I believed since the beginning. I believed I could win even if I wasn't playing my best. Now I’m in the semi-finals."
