![\"Joao](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/fonseca_melo-rio-de-janeiro-2026-saturday.jpg\")
<\/p>\n Doubles
\n Fonseca\/Melo save 1 match point in Rio de Janeiro SF<\/p>\n
Brazilians to face Frantzen\/Haase in the final<\/p>\n
February 21, 2026<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
FOTOJUMP<\/p>\n
Joao Fonseca and Marcelo Melo at the ATP 500 event in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday.
\n By Vishakha Khandelwal<\/p>\n
Joao Fonseca<\/a> erased singles heartbreak with a thrilling doubles win on Saturday at the Rio Open presented by Claro<\/a>, where he teamed with fellow Brazilian Marcelo Melo<\/a> to outlast Jakob Schnaitter<\/a> and Mark Wallner<\/a> 6-2, 2-6, 13-11 and reach the championship match.<\/p>\n The Brazilians rallied from a 2-5 deficit and saved a match point at 8\/9 in the Match Tie-break before edging the Schnaitter and Wallner in one hour and 29 minutes. In their maiden Lexus ATP Head2Head clash with the Germans, they won 70 per cent (45\/57) of their first-serve points and saved two of the four break points they saved, according to Infosys ATP Stats.<\/p>\n You May Also Like: Fonseca meets ‘everyone’s idol’ Agassi in Rio<\/a><\/p>\n Fonseca lost to Ignacio Buse<\/a> in the second round in singles but returned to the court two days later to reach his maiden tour-level final in doubles. Melo, 23 years Fonseca\u2019s senior, advanced to his 79th tour-level final and will aim to clinch his 41st title on Sunday. The Brazilian veteran claimed the Rio de Janeiro trophy in 2025 alongside countryman Rafael Matos<\/a>.<\/p>\n The home favourites will face Constantin Frantzen<\/a>\/Robin Haase<\/a> in the final. Frantzen and Haase upset third seeds Guido Andreozzi<\/a> and Manuel Guinard<\/a> 7-6(15), 2-6, 10-8 to reach the final.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Doubles Fonseca\/Melo save 1 match point in Rio de Janeiro SF Brazilians to face Frantzen\/Haase in the final…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-491811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}