Oh wow Joao!

Brazil’s Joao Fonseca has almost come straight from Next Gen title success to ATP Challenger tournament playing in Canberra to kick off the new season.

In an on-court interview, Fonseca had mentioned he did a training block in Rio de Janeiro before making his way down under.

The 18-year-old continued the run of match wins that carried him to the Next Gen title and found himself in the final against qualifier from the USA Ethan Quinn.

Both players were riding a decent winning streak. Quinn was coming off title success after winning the Champaign Challenger title in November. That took five matches and then Quinn navigated past qualifying and into the final, another six matches, an 11-game win streak.

Fonseca had won the Lexington Challenger title back in July 2024, and the Next Gen title in December. He went into the final with a 9-game winning streak.

Quinn was hit in the face in the 8th game after he lobbed Fonseca, but it didn’t go deep enough. Fonseca smashed and the ball deflected from Quinn’s racquet to his face. The American took some time to compose himself.

Serve dominated the early exchanges and went with serve until the ninth game when a deep forehand to Quinn forced an error when he hit wide. That gave Fonseca three break points.

A good body serve saw Fonseca hit wide to see one saved. On the next point, Quinn pulled a shot wide to concede the break.

Fonseca who had not faced a single break point stepped up and served out the set.

In the second set Quinn held comfortably to move to a 1-0 lead after hitting a forehand winner on game point.

The Brazilian followed that with a love service game.

A backhand second serve winner from Fonseca took the score to 15-30 and then a good deep backhand forced an error from Quinn to give Fonseca two break points in the third game.

Fonseca claimed the break when he sliced back the return deep to again see an error from Quinn who sent the ball well over the baseline.

Again the Brazilian was not trouble on serve, although back-to-back errors saw the score at 30-30 before an Ace gave Fonseca game point. A double-fault made it deuce.

That would be as close as Quinn would get to taking a game from his opponent after a deep shot went long on the return. A great high kicking serve saw Fonseca move to 3-1 after the American couldn’t find the court on the return.

At 15-0 in the fifth game Fonseca played a drop shot which Quinn easily reached and pushed high down the line. The Next Gen champion then closed on the net and pushed a volley straight back at Quinn who ducked under the ball when he could have easily stood his ground to volley.

Some good serving would see the 2023 NCAA singles champion hold to take the score to 3-2 with Fonseca next to serve.

At 40-15 Quinn was Aced and after the ball bounced back from the backstop he would grab the ball and then send it flying out the back of the court. A ball abuse warning followed.

Serving at 2-4 with new balls, Quinn looked to attack the net only to see the ball fly past him with a good passion shot from Fonseca. The former Georgia Bulldog was in trouble at 0-30 after he pulled a forehand wide.

A good wide serve could not be returned by Fonseca. A serve and volley got Quinn to 30-30 after he forced an error.

A forehand into the net from Quinn gave Fonseca another break point. Quinn would save that after making his way to the net again to force an error from his opponent.

Quinn would hold for 4-3 but not before saving another break point after a double-fault gave Fonseca another shot at breaking.

A 14 shot rally following with Fonseca hitting long to take it back to deuce. An Ace gave Quinn game point. Again some attacking tennis helped Quinn close out the game.

A forehand winner from Fonseca saw him move to just one game from the title.

A love service hold from Quinn forced to the Brazilian to serve for the championship.

Fonseca started with a wide Ace which he repeated on the Ad side. Fonseca found the side line to force an error from Quinn to bring up three championship points. One was wasted when Fonseca hit into the net, but that just delayed the inevitable two points.

Serving at 40-30, Fonseca hit the serve wide and then hit behind Quinn as he moved back to the centre of the court, the winner taking the championship for the Brazilian.

It would be the biggest title of his young career when looking at traditional tournament results. Fonseca had previously won a CH75 title in Lexington when he didn’t drop a set enroute to the title.

Fonseca again claimed a title without dropping a set.

After winning the 2019 Next Gen title, Jannik Sinner backed up at his next tournament to claim a Challenger title at the Ortisei tournament.

Fonseca is the only Next Gen champion to match that feat.

Sinner has also played in a Canberra International back in January 2020 (played in Bendigo), but the Italian lost in the second round to Emil Ruusuvuori after a first round bye. On that score, Fonseca is ahead of the current world no. 1.

Fonseca started 2024 ranked at no. 727. After this title the Brazilian sensation moves to no. 113 on the live rankings. It is just a matter of time before he will crack the top-100.

Quinn moves to no. 169 from no. 202.

Next up for both players is the Australian Open qualifying tournament.