Joao Fonseca has long been touted as a potential challenge to Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.
Fonseca continues to break new ground for Brazilian tennis and he’s recently had the chance to play the best ranked players in the game.
The Brazilian has lost to Alcaraz, Sinner, and Alexander Zverev already this year, at Indian Wells, the Miami Open, and the Monte-Carlo Masters.
Legendary tennis coach Toni Nadal watched Fonseca during the Miami Open and he was not entirely impressed with what he had seen.
Toni Nadal questions Joao Fonseca’s level
Nadal knows a thing or two about extraordinary teenagers, having coached Nadal during his emergence on the ATP Tour.
Nadal saw up-close-and-personal the level of his nephew, as well as Novak Djokovic who also burst on the scene a few years later.
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The legendary Spanish coach has been watching Fonseca and he does not believe he is at the level that Nadal or Djokovic were at.
“I watched his match in Miami. To be honest, I didn’t get the impression that I was watching a truly great player. Not on the level of Alcaraz, a superstar,” he said to Mundo Deportivo.
“I remember with Rafael, when we first saw Djokovic. I knew right away he would be number one. I saw Del Potro, whom I trained with when he was 18, and you could see he would quickly become a top-10 player.
“Roger Federer knew right away that Rafael would eventually beat him. I don’t see it the same way with Fonseca or Mensik.
“With Fonseca, I saw that he lacked some essential things to be truly great. He’s a great player, but I don’t see him as being at that level.”
Fonseca has been as high as world number 24, but he currently sits just outside the top 30 of the ATP Tour rankings.
Joao Fonseca’s 2026 season so far
The start of Fonseca’s season was derailed by a back injury and that led to him being defeated in the first round of the Australian Open to Eliot Spizzirri.
The Brazilian then struggled to find form on the South American swing and his Buenos Aires title defense ended at the round of 16 stage.
Spare just three minutes to take on this A to Z tennis trivia challenge! How many did you get right?
Fonseca began to find form on the Sunshine Double and he’s started the European clay court swing in tremendous fashion.
He reached the quarter-finals of the Monte-Carlo Masters and he reached the same stage of the Munich Open.
After his first seven tournaments of the year, the talented Brazilian teenager currently holds a win-loss record of 10-7.
