Life comes at you fast in this fickle sport that is tennis. If Joao Fonseca wasn’t already aware of it, he found it out the hard way on Thursday at the Australian Open.
Two days after setting Melbourne abuzz by beating world No. 9 Andrey Rublev in the underdog role, Fonseca lost in the second round as a heavy favorite. The 18-year-old played another good match–albeit to a lesser extent than in round one–but succumbed to an inspired Lorenzo Sonego 6-7(6), 6-1, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 after three hours and 37 minutes.
“I think one of the best matches [of] my life and [at a] Grand Slam,” Sonego assessed. “I played really well today, and I served really [well].”
Meanwhile, the future is bright for Fonseca even though his present breakthrough tournament is over.
“It’s my dream to play the tour, like the real tour where the top 50 players play,” the Brazilian explained. “The Masters, the ATP 500s, the 250s…. I want to live playing (like) this. I’m excited to join the top 100, play the big tournaments, get my place in this environment, and keep working to go bigger, to have [a better and better] ranking. For me, for myself, for my opinion, the sky’s the limit. You need to work more and more to reach your dream, which is become No. 1.”
For now, two other teenagers are carrying the torch in Melbourne. As of Wednesday, Fonseca and Jakub Mensik were already the first two teenagers to beat top-10 opponents at the same Grand Slam since Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray at Wimbledon in 2006. Now Fonseca, Mensik, and Learner Tien are the first three teenagers to accomplish that feat at the same slam since the 1990 French Open (Sergi Bruguera, Goran Ivanisevic, and Nicklas Kulti).
Tien stunned world No. 5 Daniil Medvedev 6-3, 7-6(4), 6-7(8), 1-6, 7-6(10-7) in a roller-coaster ride that lasted four hours and 49 minutes before ending at 2:55 am. The 19-year-old American had a match point in the third set (Medvedev snuffed it out with an ace) and trailed by a break late in the fifth set only to have one more momentum swing left up his sleeve. Tien broke with Medvedev serving for the match at 6-5 and won six of the final seven points after trailing 6-4 in the ensuing super-tiebreaker.
“I was definitely hoping it wouldn’t go to a fifth-set ‘breaker,” Tien said, “but I’m just happy to get a win.”
nice one, Tien
Not a surprise even before the match.
Meddys mental state has been there for all to see. Even that net camera was smashed
but Meddy smashes cameras even when he is playing well