ATP Tour

Fonseca ‘rinses and repeats’ vs. Rinderknech, faces Shelton in Munich

Joao Fonseca maintained his impressive start to his BMW Open by Bitpanda career on Wednesday, when the #NextGenATP Brazilian powered past Arthur Rinderknech to reach the quarter-finals.

Fonseca prevailed 6-3, 6-2 with a high-quality performance in Munich, where he seized control of rallies early to overcome Rinderknech for the second time in the space of eight days. Having also defeated the Frenchman en route to the quarter-finals at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, the 19-year-old is now into the last eight at ATP Tour events in back-to-back weeks for the first time.

Fonseca, who will take on second seed Ben Shelton for a semi-final spot, will hope to maintain the sort of ice-cool composure he showed at difficult moments against Rinderknech. The two-time ATP Tour champion saved all nine break points he faced in Wednesday’s encounter, according to Infosys ATP Stats.

“That was a super important key for today,” said Fonseca, who held serve from 0/40 once in each set. “I was pretty focused on today’s match, I knew it was going to be difficult. He’s already a great player, and here at altitude he can play very good tennis. Serve and volley, and drop shots. He’s full of weapons, so I needed to be very focused.

“He made some great returns today. At 3-2, when I was serving, that was a super important game to keep it up. I was 0/40, and then I made some good serves. For sure these points were key for today.”

Wow Joao 🧨💥@BMWOpen500 | #BMWOpenbyBitpanda pic.twitter.com/HT8curYOuv

— ATP Tour (@atptour) April 15, 2026

Having reached his sixth ATP Tour quarter-final, and third at ATP 500 level, Fonseca has risen five spots to No. 30 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings so far this week. His next test on the Munich clay is a maiden Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting with World No. 6 Shelton, who dug deep to overcome wild card Alexander Blockx 6-4, 7-6(8).

Shelton saved two set points in the second set, including one in the tie-break, to seal a spot in his fifth tour-level quarter-final of the season. The 23-year-old lefty is now 6-1 in Munich, where he reached the biggest clay final of his career in 2025.

There were contrasting results for seeded Italians across the final two matches of the day in Munich. Fourth seed Flavio Cobolli, a quarter-finalist on the Bavarian clay in 2023, returned to that stage once again by racing past Zizou Bergs 6-2, 6-3. His opponent in the last eight will be Vit Kopriva, after the Czech rallied to a 2-6, 6-4, 6-1 upset of sixth seed Luciano Darderi.

Earlier, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Fabian Marozsan followed Fonseca and Rinderknech onto Munich’s centre court to complete their first-round match, which was suspended at 2-2 in the deciding set on Tuesday evening due to darkness. It was the World No. 42 Marozsan, who had saved a match point at 5-6, 30/40 in the second set, who ultimately prevailed 3-6, 7-6(5), 6-4. The 2025 semi-finalist Marozsan will take on Denis Shapovalov in the second round.