Jaoa Fonseca’s dream of winning his first ATP title on home territory came to an end on Thursday after he suffered a shock three-set loss at the Rio Open.
Fonseca, who was the highest-ranked player left in the draw at the time he was playing, was beaten 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, by Peru’s Ignacio Buse. It was far from a perfect performance from the Brazilian, who hit 43 unforced errors and only converted one out of nine break point opportunities. World No.91 Buse is the lowest-ranked player to beat him on the Tour since August.
“At this level, you can’t miss opportunities like that. It was silly of me, I got a little flustered at times, but it’s a process, keep improving, keep working. I’m sad about this defeat, but I’ll move on,” Tenis Brasil quoted Fonseca as saying afterwards.
“I managed to break serve when things were relatively difficult (in the first set), but I think it was more his fault than my merit. And then in the second set, I missed a big opportunity and couldn’t find my way back into the match,” he added.
The loss comes during what has been a turbulent start to the year for Fonseca. After withdrawing from his opening tournament in Brisbane due to injury, he then suffered back-to-back first round losses at the Australian Open and Buenos Aires Open. This week in Rio was the first time he has recorded a Tour-level win in 2026, beating compatriot Thiago Monteiro in his opening match before losing to Buse.
“There are things to improve,” Fonseca admits.
“It was about making fewer mistakes. If I hadn’t made mistakes, I probably would have won, right? But knowing that tennis isn’t like that, there are going to be games where you make more mistakes. Today (Thursday) was a day when I couldn’t find my rhythm, I kept trying to find it. Anyway, that’s tennis.” He added.
Fonseca’s lull comes after his breakout year in 2025, when he won two ATP titles, including the Swiss Indoors in Basel. He has been ranked as high as 24th in the world but is currently in 38th position.
Despite losing to Buse, Fonseca still has a chance of winning a trophy in Rio in the doubles event. He is playing alongside Marcelo Melo and the duo are through to the semi-finals after upsetting second seeds Andrés Molteni and Maximo Gonzalez.
“There will be weeks when you lose, and the following week you have to change your mindset and try to find solutions,” he said.
“I think tomorrow I’ll wake up with the same drive. Marcelo and I have been a good team and we’ve been playing good tennis, so I think it’s time to sleep, rethink, reflect a little, and move on.”
