Brazilian to face Mensik in his first last-eight appearance at a major

Joao Fonseca had little trouble backing up the biggest win of his career in style Sunday night at Roland Garros.

Two days after he rallied from two sets down to stun record 24-time major champion Novak Djokovic, the #NextGenATP Brazilian star downed Casper Ruud 7-5, 7-6(8), 5-7, 6-2 to reach the quarter-finals at a Grand Slam tournament for the first time. Just as he had against Djokovic, Fonseca combined plenty of fierce forehands with some standout defence on the Paris clay to earn an impressive fourth-round triumph against two-time Roland Garros finalist Ruud.

“It was tough,” Fonseca said in his on-court interview. “Casper plays good here. He’s a very experienced guy and he knows how to play here in this amazing court. He has two finals, so it was tough in the beginning, but I played really good in the important moments in the first and second set. I was very happy because of that.”

Fonseca and Ruud’s battle on Court Philippe-Chatrier was hard fought and intense throughout, with both players firing 51 winners and producing 52 unforced errors, according to Infosys Stats. Yet with Brazilian icon and three-time Roland Garros titlist Gustavo Kuerten watching from the stands, it was the 19-year-old Fonseca who held firm at key moments for a three-hour, 55-minute win that earned him a last-eight showdown with Jakub Mensik.

"[He is] an idol for our sport and for our country,” Fonseca said of the watching Kuerten, a former No. 1 player in the PIF ATP Rankings. “For his career, he is known for the way that he is and how humble he is. He was here for my first time at Roland Garros, my first match as a junior, and it’s a pleasure to have him here. It’s a pleasure to win against a very tough opponent in front of him, so I’m just very happy.”

Perhaps the pivotal moments of Sunday night’s encounter came in the second-set tie-break when Fonseca, who had already let slip two set points at 6-5, fended off three Ruud set points (at 5/6, 6/7 and 7/8, respectively). The Brazilian then reeled off three points in a row to earn a two-set lead and send his fans in the stands into raptures.

The 15th-seeded Ruud, who came from two sets down and saved two match points to defeat Tommy Paul in the third round, was by no means done. The Norwegian capitalised on a slight drop in level from Fonseca to clinch the third set with a break in the 12th game.

Yet Fonseca showed no sign of panic and took immediate control of the fourth by racing to a 5-1 lead. He served his win out to love to become just the eighth Brazilian men’s singles quarter-finalist in Grand Slam history.

With Fonseca’s fellow 19-year-old Rafael Jodar also earning a fourth-round win on Sunday, this Roland Garros marks just the fifth time in the past 40 years that two teenagers have reached the quarter-finals in men’s singles at the same Grand Slam event. The most recent pair to do so before Fonseca and Jodar were Carlos Alcaraz and Holger Rune at Roland Garros in 2022.

Fonseca will take on another young star, 26th seed Mensik, on Tuesday for a spot in the last four in Paris, after the 20-year-old edged Andrey Rublev 6-3, 7-6(6), 4-6, 2-6, 6-3. Fonseca leads Mensik 1-0 in the pair’s Lexus ATP Head2Head series, after he defeated the Czech en route to the title at the 2024 Next Gen ATP Finals.

Mensik notched his maiden fourth-round appearance at January’s Australian Open, and after outlasting the 11th-seeded Rublev over three hours and 45 minutes in Paris, the Czech has now taken one more step at Roland Garros.

“I'm super happy with the performance, even if Andrey, [who is] a great, great guy, great fighter, showed that," Mensik said in his post-match press conference. "Basically, after being two sets to love down, he came back, and he really played unbelievable tennis, made so many great shots. The momentum was on his side.

“So it was super difficult for me, even if I was [two sets] up, I felt in some moments that I'm actually losing. I'm just happy that in the fifth set I came back and took the momentum back on my side and basically finished the match how I finished it.”