The main weak point of Joao Fonseca

After his strong start earlier this year, Joao Fonseca has somewhat stagnated in his game, making the same mistake in every match, which is hindering his progress.

For months now, the Brazilian has been opting for a very offensive style of play. It's in his DNA to want to dominate and play an attacking tennis, but lately, this approach has been weighing him down, leading to poor performances and, consequently, poor results as he struggles with unforced errors.

When facing opponents who excel in baseline play and can consistently push him back, Joao tends to lose patience too quickly and ends up making more errors than necessary. He often attempts aggressive strikes from distant or risky positions, resulting in a high error count.

In Cincinnati, Joao's winners and errors balance was as follows:

-1R, Bu: 41-44 (-3)
-2R, Davidovich: 22-36 (-14)
-3R, Atmane: 7-24 (-17)

Choosing an attacking style of play and aiming to dominate with many winning shots while ending these three matches with 104 errors and only 70 winners results in a significant deficit of -34 points. This is too much of a handicap to progress further in tournaments.

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Playing with such risk, without adequate control, puts Fonseca in a precarious position, akin to flipping a coin—luck doesn't always favor him. It's good to be offensive, but it must come with control, aiming for a good position at the baseline or setting up points strategically to increase the chances of making a winning shot or forcing errors from the opponent.

It's clear that him and his team aim to be highly offensive due to the weapons and resources available, but they need to have alternative game plans when things don't go as intended. If not, they will be constantly teetering on the edge and at risk of drowning in unforced errors.

Jannik Sinner is one of the players who best balance risk and control, seeking the lines but always with a margin. The Italian is the player on the circuit with the best average of ball placement close to the lines, less than a meter away. This is perfection, the level that Joao aspires to, but achieving that precision requires significant work.

Being as young as he is, Fonseca still has time to incorporate game plans into his style, fine-tune his accuracy when being offensive, focus on constructing points rather than risking shots from challenging positions, and work on his patience. All of this, along with improving footwork from the baseline, which would enable him to achieve these goals.

In today's tennis, without good mobility from the baseline, you're in trouble. With the current speed of play and the caliber of players capable of generating high pace, lacking a stable position on the court and quick legs puts you at a disadvantage.

We will see if Fonseca and his team are capable of addressing these aspects and making changes for the future. Remember that advertising slogan that said power without control is useless? It applies here as well.

This is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, El principal punto débil de Joao Fonseca