Brazilian sensation, Joao Fonseca is on Cloud 9 at the moment. Last week, he captured his first ATP Tour title, defeating the local favorite, Francisco Cerundolo to win the Argentina Open title. With this, he announced himself on the big stage, with many pundits talking highly about him. Fonseca idolizes Swiss maestro, Roger Federer and is looking to follow in his footsteps. As a result, he stuck onto him while making a candid confession about the greatest player of all time.
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The famed Big 3 in tennis, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic are often among the debate for the GOAT in tennis. While Federer and Nadal’s gameplay was a cut above the rest, Djokovic leads the pack in terms of statistical dominance. Nonetheless, Fonseca picked Federer as the ultimate GOAT.
During an interview, he said, “Federer (is the greatest idol). There’s no way to change that. They can say that Djokovic is the greatest of all time, but for me there’s no way. Djokovic may be the best of all time, but Federer is the greatest. Unrivaled.”
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FLUSHING MEADOW, NY – SEPTEMBER 03: Roger Federer(SUI) fixing the strings on his racquet during his 4 set loss to John Millman in the 4th round of the Men s Singles Championships at the US Open on September 03, 2018, played at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center in Flushing Meadow, NY. (Photo by Cynthia Lum/Icon Sportswire) TENNIS: SEP 03 US Open PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxHUNxRUSxSWExNORxDENxONLY Icon250180903167
To put things into perspective, Djokovic has won 24 Grand Slam singles titles against Nadal’s 22 and Federer’s 20. Additionally, the Serb has also won the most number of ATP Masters 1000 titles, prevailing on 40 occasions while Federer and Nadal have 28 and 36 titles at this level, respectively.
Further, in 2016, the now 37-year-old became the only member of the Big 3 to hold all four Majors at the same time. And not just that, he has also spent 428 weeks on top of the world rankings. Just to make it clear, this is double Nadal’s time at the summit and over two years more than Federer has managed up there. But wait, there’s more.
He has won the single gold medal at the Olympics which Federer hasn’t and he’s also won the year-end ATP Finals, which Nadal never did. Coming to the nine Master’s Series events, where the Serbian truly stands out, neither Federer nor Nadal were able to win all of them. However, if you look at Djokovic, then he has won all of them but just to flex on his opponents a little too hard, he has won them all, at least twice.
But coming back to Fonseca, he has been in awe and inspired by Federer’s greatness which made him pick the Swiss maestro above anyone else in the GOAT debate.
Meanwhile, Fonseca has time and again revealed how he idolized Federer while taking up tennis. Additionally, he also mimicked his style of play but wasn’t very successful in it.
When Joao Fonseca copied Roger Federer’s playing style
The Swiss maestro was at his peak when Fonseca picked up a tennis racket for the first time. As a result, he grew up watching Federer win titles tournament after tournament. And he gave a hilarious account of this during an interview earlier this year.
He revealed, “That I tried to model my game? I mean, my idol always was always Roger. I grew up watching Roger. Of course, I think everyone wanted to play like him. But I even tried, when I was younger, the one-handed backhand. I tried for, like, one week, and then I have something in my elbow, and then I forgot, I’m going to go two-handed again (smile).”
After his exploits in Argentina, Fonseca suffered a shock defeat against Alexandre Muller in the first round of the Rio Open. It wasn’t a happy homecoming for him after winning the biggest title of his career. Nonetheless, Fonseca would look to come back strongly after a disappointing end to his Rio Open campaign.
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Deepali Verma