Indian Wells (United States) (AFP) – Brazilian teen sensation Joao Fonseca rallied from a break down in the third set to beat Britain’s Jacob Fearnley 6-2, 1-6, 6-3 on Thursday and reach the second round at Indian Wells. The 18-year-old from Rio de Janeiro, who became the 10th-youngest ATP Tour champion in history when he triumphed at the Argentina Open last month, kept his cool on a blustery day in the California desert, winning the last five games to clinch the match.
“Today was pretty difficult, a lot of windy,” he said. “But I got through. Beginning of the match I played really well and he was making some mistakes. But the second set he played more aggressive and I was a bit more tight, maybe a bit more nervous.” Fearnley appeared to have taken control when he broke Fonseca in the third game of the third set, then saved a break point to hold for 3-1 in a game that went to deuce five times. But Fonseca won the next five games, breaking Fearnley twice and closing out an entertaining contest between the 80th- and 81st-ranked players with a backhand volley winner.
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“I was a break down and I was just focused to do my stuff,” Fonseca said. “I’m very happy the way that I changed my game.”
– Kyrgios tops the bill –
Nick Kyrgios headlines the night session in this combined ATP Masters and WTA 1000 event, where all 32 men’s and women’s seeds have first-round byes. Kyrgios comes into his first tournament since the Australian Open hoping he has put wrist and abdominal injuries behind him, and the mercurial Aussie faces a potentially tricky encounter with lucky loser Botic van de Zandschulp — the Dutch player who toppled Carlos Alcaraz at the US Open last year.
Van de Zandschulp went on to beat Rafael Nadal in Davis Cup play in what proved to be the last match of the Spaniard’s sensational career. The winner earns a second-round clash with Novak Djokovic, who is seeded sixth as he chases a record-setting sixth Indian Wells ATP Masters title. Kyrgios has won two of his three meetings with 24-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic, the exception Djokovic’s victory in the 2022 Wimbledon final.
In women’s first-round action, Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic eased past Germany’s Tatjana Maria 6-1, 6-1 in just 65 minutes. Bencic, the Tokyo Olympics gold medallist in 2021, captured the title in Abu Dhabi in February, her first trophy since she returned from maternity leave during which she gave birth to daughter Bella last April. The 27-year-old, already ahead of schedule in her comeback, said coping with the conditions was key to the match.
“Obviously today the main topic was the wind, trying to accept it and not trying to make it pretty — just staying in the rallies, trying to be more smart rather than playing amazing shots.”
Indian Wells newcomer Moyuka Uchijima of Japan cruised past former US Open champion Emma Raducanu 6-3, 6-2 to set up a second-round meeting with world number three Coco Gauff. Britain’s Raducanu was back in action for the first time since she was targeted by a stalker in a troubling incident in Dubai last month.
“I didn’t have what happened in Dubai in my head at all today,” Raducanu said, adding that it was Uchijima’s game that was the problem. “It was a lot of balls that were very, very spinny on these courts in the day and in the wind,” she said. “So (the ball) was just jumping up a lot, and then kind of short, almost like mishits, and then deep, spinny and then flat. So I didn’t really know what was coming.”
© 2024 AFP
