Carlos Alcaraz: "I see myself" in young Joao Fonseca after Miami match

Joao Fonseca has now faced the two best players in the world—Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner—at similar events, on similar surfaces, in the same month. He has also now lost to both of them, each time by symmetrical scores—7-6, 7-6 to Sinner in Indian Wells, 6-4, 6-4 to Alcaraz in Miami.

How does the 19-year-old Brazilian compare No. 1 and No. 2? According to him, one is a robot, and the other is a human. Anyone who is worried about AI’s future world domination might be happy to hear that Fonseca found the human to be the more difficult opponent.

“I think Alcaraz has more arsenal than Sinner,” Fonseca said after his defeat at the Spaniard’s hands on Friday night. “Sinner is more like a robot that just kills the ball and does everything perfect.”

“Carlos, he can do everything. He can do with topspin, can fire the ball, he has good movement. Goes to the net. It’s more difficult to understand the game. He breaks a lot your rhythm.”

You could see what Fonseca was talking about as early as the third game on Friday. The teenager had walked into the stadium to a massive roar from the pro-Brazilian audience, and he rode that noisy wave through a quick service hold to start the match. On the other side of the net, Alcaraz was shaking off some early nerves and rust. This was his first match since his semifinal loss at Indian Wells a week ago, and it’s not often that he’s something other than the crowd favorite.

By the third game, he was ready to go to work on Fonseca’s serve. Up 15-30, Alcaraz moved Fonseca into his backhand corner. But instead of hitting his next forehand into the open court, he went behind him. Surprised, Fonseca was forced to go to his slice backhand. The result was a rushed hack at the ball that sent it floating long. Alcaraz wasted no time breaking serve with a return winner on the next point. He would keep the lead the rest of the way.

With that pattern change, Alcaraz had revealed a Fonseca weakness. He’s great when he’s on the front foot, but not as poised when he’s on his back foot. His defensive slice on the backhand side can still use work, and when he’s pushed back on his forehand side, he can go for too much and send the ball flying. Chalk the latter habit up to the (over)ambition of youth.

Seeing Fonseca on the same court as Alcaraz was instructive. Alcaraz is no stranger to youthful ambition, but in this match he went for broke when he was leaning into the ball, not when he backing off of it. He also showed off his deft defensive movement, and a level of agility that is, and probably always will be, superior to Fonseca’s. Alcaraz hit 27 winners to Fonseca’s 13. Probably most important, he made 70 percent of his first serves, and won 80 percent of those points. There aren’t many players of any age capable of beating Alcaraz when he’s serving like that.

Afterward, Alcaraz had a good grasp of Fonseca’s strengths, and what he needs to improve.

“There were some times that he made a winner from behind the baseline with a fluffy ball that I just sliced, that I caught like a moonball, and from behind the baseline he was able to make a winner,” Alcaraz said. “It feels like he can make a winner every, you know, from everywhere. And that’s impressive.”

I can remember, five years ago, being amazed by Alcaraz’s ability to generate maximum power from balls that come in with no pace of their own. I’ve felt the same way watching Fonseca since his breakthrough a year ago. But as Alcaraz now knows, just because you can hit a winner on any ball, doesn’t mean you should try to do it.

“He reminds me a lot when I was his age and just coming up,” Alcaraz said of Fonseca. “He should, I would say, he should choose the better option. Sometimes he misses a few shots or sometimes he miss like a lot of easy balls because he doesn’t choose the right shots, the right, you know, the right ball in certain situations.”

Fonseca’s loss to Alcaraz may have come as something of a reality check, after his much-closer contest with Sinner. That match was played on a slower surface in Indian Wells, and Sinner planted himself farther behind the baseline than Alcaraz did in Miami. That gave Fonseca a chance to rally with Sinner, and impose his forehand on him. Fonseca was comfortable enough to build a 6-3 lead in the first-set tiebreaker, before Sinner reeled off five straight points for the set.

Still, while that match ended in defeat for the Brazilian, it should make him feel good about his clay season ahead. When he has time, he has the capability to impose his game on anyone.

What did Fonseca learn from his tour of the ATP’s top tier?

From Sinner: Unwavering intensity.

“That’s a thing that I felt, intensity of the game,’ he said of Sinner. “You need to be always ready, always focused. That’s the main difference, I think the intensity, the way that he plays important points.”

From Alcaraz: The value of unpredictability, and the necessity of taking your (precious few) chances when you get them

“You don’t know what it’s coming, and if it’s coming serve, serve and volley, if it’s going serve wide and do a plus-one shot, you kind of don’t know,” he said of the Alcaraz attack.

“You need to almost play a perfect match. When I had a break point, I miss a return or he served well. Those are the opportunities I can’t miss.”

If I were Fonseca heading to Europe for the clay swing, I would try to keep Alcaraz’s parting words at the top of my mind.

“He reminds me a lot when I was his age and just coming up.”

When those words come from a world No. 1, you should feel pretty good about your future in this sport.