PARIS (AP) \u2014 Jo\u00e3o Fonseca\u2019s breakthrough performance at the French Open was just what tennis needs more of.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old brought a new level of buzz to the sport with his vocal Brazilian fans, blistering forehands and a comeback victory for the ages over 39-year-old Novak Djokovic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe world is on his shoulders. People want him so bad to do well all over the world,\u201d John McEnroe told reporters, adding that American TV broadcaster TNT was hoping he would reach the final: \u201cThat\u2019s how big he\u2019s become.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fonseca, however, ran out of energy in a straight-sets loss to Jakub Mensik in the quarterfinals late Tuesday.<\/p>\n
A drop in level was understandable after Fonseca twice rallied from two sets down, first against Dino Prizmic in the second round and then against Djokovic in the third round \u2014 having never won a five-set match before.<\/p>\n
In the fourth round, Fonseca eliminated two-time runner-up Casper Ruud.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mentality is on the right path,\u201d Fonseca said after getting beat by Mensik.<\/p>\n
Fonseca has been hyped as The Next Big Thing in men\u2019s tennis since he upset No. 9 seed Andrey Rublev in the opening round of last year\u2019s Australian Open as an 18-year-old. That was his Grand Slam debut and it came when he was ranked 112th and made it into the main draw by winning three matches in qualifying rounds.<\/p>\n
Fonseca is now No. 30 and is projected to move up to No. 25 after achieving his best Grand Slam result so far.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor all the expectations and hype,\u201d McEnroe said, \u201che\u2019s starting to figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fonseca’s attention now turns to Wimbledon, where he reached the third round last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like playing on grass. It\u2019s fun,\u201d he said, adding that he would head home to Brazil for a week before coming back over to Europe to begin the grass-court season.<\/p>\n
For Fonseca\u2019s last two matches in Paris, former French Open champion Gustavo \u201cGuga\u201d Kuerten sat in the front row to watch his fellow Brazilian. Fonseca is the first Brazilian man to reach the last eight in Paris since \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 Kuerten in 2004.<\/p>\n
Kuerten won Roland Garros in 1997, 2000 and 2001 and was ranked No. 1.<\/p>\n
Djokovic suggested that Fonseca could be just as successful.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe definitely has the potential to do that. Things have to come together,\u201d Djokovic said. \u201cHe\u2019s got firepower. He\u2019s got the whole Brazilian nation cheering him up, so there\u2019s a lot of excitement around him \u2014 rightfully so. So hopefully he can be the next great thing, win Slams. Definitely wish to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS (AP) \u2014 Jo\u00e3o Fonseca\u2019s breakthrough performance at the French Open was just what tennis needs more of.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[705,897,2239,207,1023,5155,1238,139,264,263,220],"class_list":["post-12367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-french-open","tag-andrey-rublev","tag-casper-ruud","tag-dino-prizmic","tag-french-open","tag-jakub-mensik","tag-joao-fonseca-french-open-roland-garros-brazil","tag-john-mcenroe","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-roland-garros"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}