Brazilian downs French World No. 26 for second time in eight days

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.”

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).