{"id":305047,"date":"2025-07-30T22:36:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T22:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/305047\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T22:36:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T22:36:11","slug":"lindsay-davenport-pinpoints-the-area-of-joao-fonsecas-game-that-he-struggled-with-during-his-canadian-open-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/305047\/","title":{"rendered":"Lindsay Davenport pinpoints the area of Joao Fonseca\u2019s game that he struggled with during his Canadian Open loss"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Joao Fonseca has exited the Canadian Open at the first hurdle.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 18-year-old prodigal star was tipped by Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> to be one of the best players on tour, and he has shown sparkles of his talent throughout 2025.<\/p>\n

Fonseca burst onto the scene after defeating Andrey Rublev in straight sets in the first round of the Australian Open<\/a>. Since then, he has also picked up victories at the French Open and Wimbledon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, at the youngster\u2019s most recent tournament, the Canadian Open, he struggled in his first round. Fonseca<\/a> was defeated by Australia\u2019s Tristan Schoolkate.<\/p>\n

\"JoaoPhoto by Mert Alper Dervis \/Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Following his loss, the Tennis Channel Live Podcast<\/a> analysed what went wrong for the young Brazilian against Schoolkate.<\/p>\n

Lindsay Davenport says Fonseca struggled with his return<\/p>\n

Speaking on the Tennis Channel Live Podcast, 1999 Wimbledon champion Lindsay Davenport weighed in on a key area of Fonseca\u2019s game which caused the Brazilian problems.<\/p>\n

Davenport<\/a> said: \u201cObviously it\u2019s been a remarkable year for Fonseca but his expectations are much higher than going out in the first round.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe really struggled with his return in the match. Yes, Schoolkate served well but there was no real problem-solving for Fonseca in that category. [He] just wasn\u2019t able to get the rally in to start the point when he was receiving.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe now has two weeks until his next match, or about 12 days or so. So, it\u2019ll be interesting to see [if] he goes and does a training block in south Florida. Maybe he goes back to Brazil for a little bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to be able to manage an 18, almost 19-year-old\u2019s mental game as well, and this has been a lot this year maybe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davenport is correct. Fonseca, who lost 7-6 6-4, failed to force a single break-point opportunity during the entire match, limiting his chances to shift the momentum and utilise his powerful groundstrokes.<\/p>\n

Davenport\u2019s point is also strengthened when considering Schoolkate\u2019s serving numbers. The Australian won a remarkable 89 per cent of his first serve points.<\/p>\n

Even more remarkably, Schoolkate won 78 per cent of his second serve points. These serving numbers are incredibly high, illustrating both Schoolkate\u2019s excellent serving and Fonseca\u2019s poor returning performance.<\/p>\n

\u2018That\u2019s a lot of pressure\u2019<\/p>\n

Jon Wertheim, who co-hosts the podcast, pointed to evidential material portraying Fonseca as a \u2018bonafide star,\u2019 concluding that there is a lot of pressure on the teenager.<\/p>\n

Wertheim said: \u201cNote that 6-7 record since Miami, I mean, keep in mind three of those were at majors, so I mean he\u2019s won rounds at all three majors he\u2019s played at this year, that\u2019s a good sign, best of five format.<\/p>\n

\"Brazil'sPhoto by KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the results at other tournaments haven\u2019t quite been there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m here in New York right now. The US Open hype has started already. There are billboards that have his face on it. <\/p>\n

\u201cI mean this guy is already a bonafide star, and it\u2019s going to be interesting to see sort of the combination; I think it\u2019s the surface, the travel the pressure. I mean this is his rookie season.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s a little strange to be walking down the streets of New York and you\u2019ve got all the faces of the US Open and here is this teenager who\u2019s making his debut. That\u2019s a lot of pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joao Fonseca has exited the Canadian Open at the first hurdle. The 18-year-old prodigal star was tipped by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79963,66689,25761,100977,79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-305047","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp-tennis-players","9":"tag-canadian-open","10":"tag-joao-fonseca","11":"tag-lindsay-davenport","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tennis","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114944578978392112","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}