Behind the scenes with Joao Fonseca, man of the moment

Stars are not born overnight. The best players in the game do not wake up one morning at the top of the sport. It takes years of hard work, dedication and, importantly, results.

Often there is a moment of confirmation. Potential and promise boil over into breakthrough on a big stage. Think Roger Federer’s win against Pete Sampras at Wimbledon in 2001. Could Joao Fonseca's impressive win against Andrey Rublev on Tuesday evening at the Australian Open have been one of those moments?

The 18-year-old Brazilian had already made his mark on the ATP Tour, surging to the Rio de Janeiro ATP 500 quarter-finals last year as a 17-year-old and later winning the Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF. The only other player to win the 20-and-under event and his next tournament after it was current World No. 1 Jannik Sinner.

But if those were hurdles to clear, what came in the Australian Open draw was a different, more challenging kind of obstacle: 10-time major quarter-finalist Andrey Rublev. The teen had never faced a Top 10 player before. It would take more than a leap to clear this test.

Could Fonseca raise his level to challenge such a consistent force? Would he be able to maintain his tennis in a best-of-five format?

The Brazilian answered those questions with a resounding “yes”, beating Rublev 7-6(1), 6-3, 7-6(5), sending the Margaret Court Arena crowd into a frenzy.

Yet when Fonseca walked out of the locker room at 12:24 a.m., you would never have been able to tell what the 18-year-old had just accomplished. Fonseca had just stepped into the spotlight on an international stage and acted no differently than he would have any other day.

Christopher Kas, a former-player-turned coach, congratulated the Brazilian on his win as Kamil Majchrzak walked by. Otherwise, the player hallway in the depths of Rod Laver Arena was completely quiet. Security guards stood at attention, but otherwise there was a sense of calm.

Fonseca answered questions in Portuguese as he ventured upstairs to meet the media. There was no entourage surrounding him, only two members of ATP staff. The phenom carried a sweatshirt and his Australian Open Waterdrop bottle.

“I go in the big room?” Fonseca asked. “That’s too much for me.”

The youngest player in the Top 200 cracked a smile. He was seemingly unfazed by what he had accomplished. Instead of taking the walk to reflect to himself on a huge victory, Fonseca was inquisitive, asking about the broadcast studios, media workroom and press conference rooms.

“Hello,” Fonseca said to the media staffers in a jovial manner as he walked into the main interview room at 12:26 a.m.

“Good to see you,” was how the Brazilian began his first English answer in response to a journalist.

For nearly 10 minutes Fonseca fielded questions from the English-speaking media before transitioning to Portuguese.

“Obrigado,” he said on the way out, later remarking how nice the room was.

Watch Joao Fonseca's 'Journey to Jeddah' episode here:

At 12:43 a.m. Fonseca walked into a studio to do an interview for the broadcasting world feed. The rest of the building’s third floor was silent.

“I like those kinds of pressure,” Fonseca said. “This pressure, the opponents have more than me. Of course I was nervous because of the stadium, because I was playing against a really good player. But I like those difficult matches and [that] is where I play better.”

Fonseca reminded the production crew that while this was the pair’s first Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting, the Brazilian had actually hit with Rublev at the 2023 Nitto ATP Finals, just more than a year ago. At that point, Fonseca was World No. 676. The 18-year-old asked Rublev for a t-shirt at the recent US Open. It is safe to say Fonseca is someone future players will be asking for shirts one day.

On the way out of the studio, Fonseca, who is now inside the Top 100 of the PIF ATP Live Rankings, said two things:

“Thank you everyone.”

“See you… See you soon.”

That was the first post-match world feed interview Fonseca conducted at the Australian Open and it certainly will be far from the last.

After a short walk to an outdoor terrace, Fonseca began an interview with ESPN International at 12:54 a.m. Hundreds of birds flew in the air over Melbourne Park and the noise was not from fans, who had long ago departed, but the cleaning crew preparing the grounds for the next day.

Just a few minutes later, Fonseca headed into the elevator to return to the players’ area of the facility. When he walked out of the elevator, the lights were off before automatically triggering. After a long day of tennis at the season’s first major, Fonseca was the last man standing.

There is still work to be done. The #NextGenATP star will face Italian veteran Lorenzo Sonego on Thursday evening with a place in the third round on the line.

At 12:59 a.m., Fonseca shook hands with the two staffers who had spent the previous 35 minutes with him and walked through the sliding doors back towards the locker room.

Long gone were the raucous fans and the intensity of the spotlight he experienced just a few hours prior. But what they saw on court was exactly the same person in the tunnels of Rod Laver Arena hours later: a humble prodigy who sees himself the same as anyone else around him. Fonseca is just a boy from Rio de Janeiro living his dream.