Why beating Djokovic is coming of age moment for Fonseca

Fonseca has long been touted as the next big thing, first garnering attention when he followed in the footsteps of Sinner and Alcaraz to win the 2024 ATP Next Gen finals - the end-of-season showpiece for players under the age of 21 - before bursting into the spotlight with his victory over Rublev in Melbourne barely a month later. He clinched his maiden ATP title on the clay courts of Buenos Aires in February 2025 before reaching the third round on his French Open debut, where he lost to Britain's Jack Draper. And wherever he went, a carnival of Brazilian flags followed. Twelve months after making his bow in Paris as the world number 65, he returned as the 28th seed but, while there have been flashes of promise in that period - reaching the third round at Wimbledon, a second career title at last October's Swiss Indoors, and a quarter-final at the Monte-Carlo Masters - there was a sense he hadn't quite lived up to his precocious talent. No more. At the sixth time of asking, Fonseca is through to the second week of a major. He's gone where no teenager has gone before in beating Djokovic at a Grand Slam, and is only the sixth to do so at any ATP Tour-level event. He is the first player since Philipp Kohlschreiber, in 2009, to knock Djokovic out before the quarter-finals at the French Open and the first to do so at any Slam since the 2024 US Open. "Joao Fonseca has definitely announced himself now," Annabel Croft said on BBC Radio 5 Live. …