Fonseca’s next opponent has already beaten Djokovic and Alcaraz and has a singing career

João Fonseca already know who they will face in the second round of the Australian Open. Will it be Italian Lorenzo Sonego29 years old and currently 55th in the world. The tennis player, who does not usually appear among the favorites even in smaller tournaments, has already won Novak Djokovic e Carlos Alcarazbecame involved in a controversy with Rafael Nadal two years ago and has already released three songs, in a discreet attempt to carve out an artistic career.

The match between Fonseca and Sonego does not yet have a defined date and time. But it should happen on Thursday, if bad weather doesn’t disrupt the schedule for the first Grand Slam of the season, held in Melbourne.

Sonego beat the experienced Swiss in the first round Stan Wawrinkaowner of three Grand Slam titles, by 3 sets to 1, with partials of 6/4, 5/7, 7/5 and 7/5. His best result in Grand Slam tournaments is the round of 16, obtained at Roland Garros, in 2020 and 2023, and at Wimbledon, in 2021. Australian Openits best performance came in 2022, when it reached the third round.

Fonseca, who eliminated Russian Andrey Rublev 3-0 this Tuesday, has already faced Sonego once on the circuit. And the Brazilian came out on top, last year, on clay at the Bucharest Tournament, in Romania.

Against the main tennis players on the circuit, Sonego has already achieved major victories over Djokovic, on clay at the Masters 1000 in Rome, in 2021, and the Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, in the second round of the Australian Open from last year.

The Italian, however, is best remembered for a controversial match against Nadal, at Wimbledon, in 2022. Sonego, who was already 21st in the rankings, in 2021, lengthened the screams he lets out with each hit of the ball during the game. And he made the Spaniard stop the match and go to the center of the court to complain about the screams. At the end of the match, Nadal apologized and said he exaggerated his reaction.

In Italy, Sonego is part of the second tier of tennis in the country, which has been shining on the courts in recent years, mainly with Jannik Sinner and Matteo Berrettini. He is currently the seventh best tennis player in Italy, according to the ATP rankings. Still, he was part of the team that won the 2023 Davis Cup.

Singing career

Without much fanfare, Sonego has been trying to build a musical career in parallel to his career as a professional tennis player. He already has three songs released worldwide, all available on the Spotify platform. The last of them, “Cielo Aperto” (Open Sky, in free translation), was released in early 2023.

The first, called “Un Solo Secondo” (One Second), has already been played more than 1 million times on the famous platform. All were produced in partnership with my friend AlterEdo.

“We started the song almost as a joke and we had fun. We wrote the song and put some good words together and it took off,” Sonego told the ATP website. “I work on my music with my best friend and it’s really good. When we were young, we sang some songs together and tried to write some words. Then we decided to make a real song together,” commented the tennis player.