By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Friday February 14, 2025
Joao Fonseca battled through rain and Mariano Navone, saving a pair of match points to reach his first ATP semifinal in Buenos Aires.
Photo Source: TTV
Joao Fonseca may only be 18 but on Friday he played with the poise and self-belief of someone much older as he defeated Mariano Navone 3-6, 6-4, 7-5 to reach his maiden ATP semifinal at the Buenos Aires Open.
“Those are the victories that we work for,” Fonseca said. “I was not playing my best. I fought til the end. I’m tired. He was winning but since the beginning I was believing I could win, even if I wasn’t playing my best.
“I fought, I believed, and now I’m in the semifinal.”
47th-ranked Navone nearly got over the line. The 23-year-old had double match point with Navone serving at 3-5, 15-40. From the moment that Fonseca laced a backhand winner on the second of those aforementioned match point, the momentum was in the Brazilian's hands.
He finished off the hold, then broke to 15 in the next game to level at 5-all.
A love hold put the pressure back on Navone’s shoulders, and while serving to stay alive at 5-6 he handled it well by saving a pair of match points to prolong the match. But the 99th-ranked teen kept taking his shots and he eventually converted his third match point before kneeling on the clay in jubilation.
Fonseca hit 34 winners and survived 60 unforced errors on a drizzly day in the Argentinian capital.
With his win Fonseca becomes the youngest ATP Tour semifinalist on clay since Carlos Alcaraz won 2021 Umag and youngest Brazilian semifinalist in Open Era history. He will face Serbia’s Laslo Djere in the semifinals.