In the late 90s, I went to the Miami Open for the first time. In those days, it was played in Key Biscayne and known as “The Lipton.” The first match I watched featured Gustavo “Guga” Kuerten. Guga was already a Grand Slam champion by then, and the stands were full. But I was still unprepared for the burst of joyous noise that greeted the first good shot he hit, and every good shot thereafter. It felt like a corner of the grounds had been annexed by Brazil, covered in green and yellow, and renamed Tiny Rio. Even for someone from diverse New York, it was eye-opening. Florida felt like the world.
A quarter of a century later, the tournament has been renamed to emphasize its location, and moved off of an island and into the city’s pro-football stadium. One of the results, as we saw this past week, is that there’s even more room for South Florida’s 400,000-strong Brazilian community to put on their green and yellow and make their noise. For the first time since Kuerten retired in 2008, those fans had a homegrown tennis star to cheer in João Fonseca. Seventeen years is a long time to wait, and they made the most of it during his three matches.
Read more: Djokovic hails “future superstar” Fonseca amid Miami breakthrough
The tournament’s schedulers knew what they had right away. Like Chris Evert when she debuted at the US Open at 15 in 1971, Fonseca began in the main stadium and never left. On Monday, there were two well-known American men, Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe, in action; they ended up in the smaller Grandstand during the afternoon, while Fonseca and his Australian opponent, Alex de Minaur, got the prime-time evening spot in the big house.
