Joao Fonseca won his first match at the Indian Wells Open. He beat Jacob Fearnley in the first round of the ATP Masters 1000 tournament.
Fonseca might be an incredibly talented teenager, but that also implies that he is a very young and inexperienced player. That inexperience showed in his first match at the 2025 Indian Wells Open.
His opponent was fellow youngster Jacob Fearnley, so the 18-year-old Brazilian knew that the player on the opposite side of the net also wasn’t someone very experienced, especially when it comes to the ATP Masters 1000 tournaments.
Fonseca recently won the Argentina Open, and even though he couldn’t initially follow up on that win in Rio de Janeiro, it certainly felt like he entered this match on a victorious wave, even though the wind tried to stop him. A towel blew onto the court already in the second game of this match, causing a replay of the rally.
Fonseca was simply great in the first set of this match. He broke his opponent’s serve already in the opening game and held his own serve without any sign of issues. The Brazilian player won 77% of the rallies after his first serve and 70% of points after his second serve in the first set.
On top of that, he was able to break Fearnley’s serve one more time. Despite hitting only four winners in the opening set of the match, Fonseca was just all over his opponent, easily winning 6-2.
But the teenager wasn’t able to maintain that level for too long. He started struggling on his second serve in the second set, and when trying to compensate with groundstrokes, Fonseca started making mistakes.
He had 13 unforced errors in the second set, which was too much, especially since he had only six winners. Fearnley, on the other hand, was able to produce 10 winners while he kept his number of unforced errors at eight.
The British player’s performance in the second set improved overall as well. He was a threat on each one of his opponent’s service games, having break points every single time.
Although Fearnley couldn’t use his two break chances in the second game, he used his chances in the two following games, and thanks to that, he won the second set of the match to force the decider.
Fonseca continued spraying unforced errors also in the third set. He fell behind 1-3, and things were looking good for his opponent, while it seemed that the 18-year-old superstar might add a second consecutive loss to his resume.
However, the Brazilian player was able to raise his level when it mattered. He was already down 2-3 and 0-30, but he didn’t lose any more games in the remainder of the match.
Fonseca broke Fearnley’s serve twice and held his own without facing break points. That meant he was able to turn the third set around to win the match 6-2, 1-6, 6-3. His second-round opponent will be another British player, the 13th-seeded Jack Draper.
