Joao Sousa advanced to the fourth round at Wimbledon for the first time on Saturday, defeating home favourite Daniel Evans in a five-set thriller. His reward is a showdown with two-time champion Rafael Nadal.
This is Sousa's 27th Grand Slam championship main draw appearance, and he will try to reach his first major quarter-final. The World No. 69 enters his match against Nadal with four victories against Top 10 opposition. ATPTour.com looks at five things to know about the right-hander.
1. Sousa Knows Nadal Well
Nadal has won both of his previous FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings against Sousa. But their most recent match came at 2016 Madrid, and both clashes were on clay. However, they are plenty familiar with one another.
“We know each other very well. Practised plenty of times together. He's a player that when he's winning matches, he's a super dangerous opponent against everybody. He is very quick, very good physical performer. He's aggressive with his shots, he's going for the shots all the time,” Nadal said. “He's a player that, sometimes, he loses matches during the whole year. But when he starts to have a positive dynamic, is very, very dangerous. I think I saw him playing in Halle some great matches. Here I saw him play the other day against Cilic. He was playing great.”
2. He Left Portugal For Barcelona At 15
Sousa chose to uproot himself and move to Barcelona to train when he was just 15, leaving his family in Portugal.
“I think that was perhaps the biggest decision of my life. I went alone there,” Sousa said. “I think it was [my] one shot to go there to try and be a professional.”
Read Feature: From Guimaraes To National Glory For Sousa
3. Sousa Followed In His Father’s Footsteps
Sousa was seven years old in his native Guimaraes, Portugal, when he began joining his father, Armando (a judge), at the local tennis courts. The sport was his dad’s passion.
Sousa’s first coach was in Guimaraes, and his name was Luis Coutinho. “I learned from him to be humble and to work as much as I can to try to reach my goals,” Sousa remembered.
4. He Has The Backing Of A President
Last year in Estoril, Sousa became the first Portuguese player to lift an ATP Tour trophy on home soil. It meant so much in his country, that Sousa was congratulated in person by Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa afterwards.
"It's just amazing. It's a dream come true," Sousa said. "It is very special for a Portuguese player to win here on home soil. I know how hard the organisation worked to make this tournament one of the best in the world and it's just amazing. The crowd was unbelievable."
Sousa's ATP Tour Titles
| 2018 | Estoril |
| 2015 | Valencia |
| 2013 | Kuala Lumpur |
5. The Portuguese Speaks Six Languages
Sousa speaks Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, English, French and Italian. His hobbies include playing and watching football, reading books, going to the cinema and hanging out with friends. The three-time ATP Tour titlist says that if he wasn't a tennis player, he would be a football player or a doctor.
from Tennis - ATP World Tour https://ift.tt/325Ho6W
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