Fonseca into Wimbledon R3: 'You actually need to be brave'

Joao Fonseca may feel slightly out of his comfort zone on the Wimbledon grass, but the 19-year-old Brazilian is settling in as fast as he can at the 2026 edition of the London major.

The No. 27 player in the PIF ATP Rankings, Fonseca raced past Jesper de Jong 6-1, 7-5, 6-4 on Wednesday to advance to the third round at SW19 for the second consecutive year. Although he has contested just 10 tour-level matches on grass, the 19-year-old is again showing he is not afraid to tailor his game to the surface.

“You actually need to be brave,” Fonseca said when asked about his approach to grass in his post-match press conference. “You need to focus and you need to have courage with the movement on court. You can't be afraid to do movement and slide. You need to feel good on court with movement.

“You also need to be brave because if you don't [get to] the ball, the ball is going to get to you, and sometimes you're going to hit the ball just behind you and get a miss. So you need to always be brave [getting to] the ball. So it's a surface [on which] you have less opportunities to break the guy, and the guy has less opportunities to break you. It's a very fast surface, and you need to be very focused all the time.”

Fonseca powered 38 winners and made just 18 unforced errors in the two hours, 21 minutes he spent on No. 3 Court against De Jong. He is now 5-5 in tour-level matches on grass, according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index, and he will aim to improve on that record further when he faces Roman Safiullin for a fourth-round spot.

A quarter-finalist at Wimbledon in 2023, Safiullin kept his latest run at The All England Club alive with a 6-0, 4-6, 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(10-5) triumph against Botic van de Zandschulp. The former World No. 36 has now won five consecutive matches, having come through Wimbledon qualifying to earn his berth in the main draw.