ROLAND-GARROS
18 May - 7 June 2026
Friday afternoon – and on into the early evening – Joao Fonseca did the unthinkable: he beat one of his idols and statistically the greatest player ever to pick up a raquet. And he did it from two sets down, to boot. Over the course of nearly five hours, he found a way past Novak Djokovic.
Day 8 Under the lights: the long game
Both players have had tough paths to get to this stage - it may come down to who is able to recover best.
At the end, as he went to celebrate with his team, he looked physically exhausted (unsurprisingly) but he also looked emotionally spent. It had been a remarkable achievement and now he was into the fourth round for the first time in his young life. But on Sunday he has to regroup, reset and go again against Casper Ruud. The same Ruud who reached the final here in 2022 and 23 and the US Open final in 22. No pressure, Joao. No pressure.
“I was not even believing myself; he was destroying me,” Fonseca said of the first two sets. “If I hit it hard, the ball was coming back harder. If I would go higher, he was just doing dropshots and going aggressive.
“I think just ten minutes after the match I could realise a little bit what I did, what I achieved, how difficult it was, and how amazing it was for me. I'm just in the fourth round.
“Of course, Jannik and Djokovic out, there's more chances for the guys that are more time on tour, like Sascha [Zverev], Casper, or whatever.
I'm just focusing match by match. For me it was a great achievement just being able to play my first time round of 16. I'm just going to enjoy the moment.”
But as the 19-year-old is beginning to learn, there is little time to enjoy the moment the further you go in a Grand Slam tournament. That is something Ruud understands well enough. His first thoughts after coming back from two sets down to beat Tommy Paul in a match he described as “brutal” were rest and recovery. Then it would be pre-match prep for Fonseca.
“I'm going to try to use the experiences that I've had of reaching far in Slams to my advantage and see where that takes me,” he said, “but you focus one match at a time. I have an incredible task ahead of me with a young special talent like Joao. He has already beaten top players in his career, so he knows what it takes.
“[Beating Djokovic] was probably the biggest win of his career, so we are kind of in the same position. We came back from 0-2. They were long matches. So I will see if I can give him a good match and fight.”
With the big favourites already on their way home, the draw is wide open. There will be a new champion in Paris and he will be the man who can keep his emotions in check and not let himself dream of what might be by the end of next Sunday.