João Souza

João Souza
João Souza at Wimbledon 2014
Nickname:	Feijão
Nation:	Brazil
Birthday:	May 27, 1988
Size:	193 cm
Weight:	92 kg
1st professional season:	2006
Resignation:	2019
Playing hand:	Right, two-handed backhand
Trainer:	Ricardo Acioly
Prize money:	$ 1,338,061
singles
Career record:	27:50
Highest ranking:	69 (April 6, 2015)
Grand Slam record
Double
Career record:	27:34
Highest ranking:	70 (January 7, 2013)
Grand Slam record
Sources: official player profiles at the ATP / WTA and ITF (see web links )

João Olavo Soares de Souza (born May 27, 1988 in Mogi das Cruzes ) is a former Brazilian tennis player who was banned from the ITF for life in 2020 due to match-fixing .

Career

Career and junior career

João Souza started playing tennis at the age of nine. In 2005 he moved to Rio de Janeiro , where he trained with Ricardo Acioly , who won several ATP doubles titles in the late 1980s and was the captain of the Brazilian Davis Cup team from 1998 to 2003 . The collaboration quickly led to success. On the junior tour, Souza won several tournaments in South America, which made him 51st in the junior world rankings.

2004–2009: First successes in future and challenger tournaments

At the same time, Souza has been playing in future tournaments in the adult sector since 2004 and, after winning the first match, was included in the ATP world rankings for the first time in September 2005 . In October 2006 he reached a future final for the first time and in May 2007 he won his first future title. In the further course of the year he was able to win two more future tournaments, and he was also able to celebrate his first victories at Challenger tournaments. The year 2007 he finished 313 in the world rankings.

In 2008 Souza won two more Future titles and in Challenger tournaments he reached three semifinals. He also tried to qualify for a Grand Slam tournament for the first time this year ; however, he only got through to the second qualifying round. In December 2008 Souza was listed in the top 200 of the world rankings for the first time.

In February 2009 he and his compatriot Ricardo Hocevar received a wild card for the ATP tournament in Costa do Sauípe . They were eliminated in the first round against Lucas Arnold Ker and Juan Mónaco . After he failed in the semifinals of a Challenger tournament three times in the course of 2009, Souza was able to reach a final for the first time in November 2009 in Medellín . He lost it in three tight sets against the top 100 player Juan Ignacio Chela . As early as May 2009 Souza won a Challenger title in doubles for the first time in Pereira .

2010–2011: ATP debut, challenger title and entry into the top 100

In February 2010 he was able to qualify for the first time for the individual main draw of an ATP tournament in Santiago de Chile . In the first round he defeated Simon Greul , who was in 7th position , after which he advanced through victories over Pere Riba and Alberto Martín to the semi-finals. There he had no chance against the top 30 player Juan Mónaco . At the following ATP tournament in Costa do Sauípe , Souza was able to compete in the main field because of a special exempt without qualification. However, he was eliminated in the first round against Victor Hănescu . In April 2010 he won his first Challenger title in Bogotá . He defeated Santiago Giraldo in the semifinals and Alejandro Falla in the final, the two best Colombian players on home soil. In the further course of the season Souza repeatedly missed the jump into the main field. In contrast, he won his second Challenger title in September 2010 - again in Bogotá - by defeating Reda El Amrani . He didn’t give a set during the entire tournament. Only two weeks later he reached another final, but in Quito he had to admit defeat to local hero Giovanni Lapentti in three sets .

At the beginning of 2011, Souza was eliminated in the first round of qualifying for the Australian Open . At the ATP tournament in Santiago de Chile in February 2011, he defeated the top 100 player Pablo Cuevas in the first round , but then lost to Máximo González in the second round . Also at the following ATP tournament in Costa do Sauípe , Souza was eliminated in the second round. The next major success he achieved in April 2011 at the Challenger tournament in Santos , where he first defeated the top 100 player Ricardo Mello in the semifinals and then won the final against Diego Junqueira and thus won his first title won this year. A month later he met Junqueira again in a Challenger final in Zagreb , but this time he lost in straight sets. In July 2011 Souza qualified for the ATP tournament in Gstaad , where he lost in three sets to Frederico Gil in the first round . A week later he qualified again for an ATP tournament in Kitzbühel ; there he reached an ATP semifinals for the second time in his career by beating the top 50 player Pablo Andújar, among other things . Although he was defeated by the eventual tournament winner Robin Haase in three sets , he made it into the top 100 of the world rankings for the first time. In August 2011 Souza was able to qualify for a Grand Slam tournament for the first time at the US Open , but he was eliminated in the first main round against Robby Ginepri . At the last ATP clay court tournament of the season in Bucharest , he reached a quarter-finals again and defeated, among others, the top 50 player Tommy Robredo, who was fifth .

Since 2012

After finishing the previous year at number 104 in the world rankings, Souza was directly qualified at the Australian Open in 2012; however, he lost to Matthew Ebden in the first round . In doubles, however, he reached the second round at the side of his compatriot Ricardo Mello , which they lost against the later semi-finalists Robert Lindstedt and Horia Tecau . At the subsequent ATP tournament in Viña del Mar , Souza reached the quarter-finals after defeating Filippo Volandri , who was in 8th position, and the former top 10 player Fernando González , in which he was eliminated by Juan Ignacio Chela .

In April 2015 he achieved his best world ranking position with 69th place.

Parts of this article seem out of date as of 2012 .
Please help to research and insert the missing information .

In March 2019, Souza was temporarily banned from the Tennis Integrity Unit on charges of corruption . This ban was confirmed in January 2020, because the Integrity Unit saw it as proven that Souza repeatedly manipulated and postponed games on the ATP Challenger Tour and ITF Future events in Brazil, Mexico, the USA and the Czech Republic from 2015 to 2019 . In addition, Souza failed to fulfill its obligations to report contact fraudsters to the association. With the ban, Souza was banned for life from actively participating in tennis or even attending an official tournament. He was also sentenced to pay a fine of $ 200,000.

successes

Legend (number of victories)

Grand Slam

ATP World Tour Finals

ATP World Tour Masters 1000

ATP World Tour 500

ATP World Tour 250

ATP Challenger Tour (16)

singles

Tournament victories

No.	date	competition	Topping	Final opponent	Result
1.	April 11, 2010	Bogotá	sand	Alejandro Falla	4: 6, 6: 4, 6: 1
2.	September 26, 2010	Bogotá	sand	Reda El Amrani	7: 5, 7: 6 6
3.	April 24, 2011	Santos	sand	Diego Junqueira	6: 4, 6: 2
4th	September 16, 2012	Cali	sand	Thiago Alves	6: 2, 6: 4
5.	October 7, 2012	Quito	sand	Guillaume Rufin	6: 2, 7: 6 4
6th	October 13, 2013	Sao José do Rio Preto	sand	Alejandro González	7: 6 0 , 6: 3
7th	5th January 2014	São Paulo	Hard court	Alejandro González	6: 4, 6: 4
8th.	7th August 2016	Cortina d'Ampezzo	sand	Laslo Đere	6: 4, 7: 6 4
9.	August 14, 2016	Fano	sand	Nicolás kicker	6: 4, 6: 7 12 , 6: 2

Double

Tournament victories

No.	date	competition	Topping	partner	Final opponent	Result
1.	May 3, 2009	Pereira	sand	Victor Estrella	Juan Sebastián Cabal Alejandro Falla	6: 4, 6: 4
2.	23rd September 2012	Campinas	sand	Marcelo Demoliner	Marcel Felder Máximo González	6: 1, 7: 5
3.	October 21, 2012	Rio de Janeiro	sand	Marcelo Demoliner	João Sousa Frederico Gil	6: 2, 6: 4
4th	October 28, 2012	Porto Alegre	sand	Marcelo Demoliner	Simon Greul Alessandro Motti	6: 3, 3: 6, [10: 7]
5.	March 9, 2013	Santiago de Chile	sand	Marcelo Demoliner	Federico Delboni's Diego Junqueira	7: 5, 6: 1
6th	April 27, 2013	São Paulo	sand	Marcelo Demoliner	James Cerretani Pierre-Hugues Herbert	6: 4, 3: 6, [10: 6]
7th	September 21, 2014	Quito	Hard court	Marcelo Demoliner	Duilio Beretta Martín Cuevas	6: 4, 6: 4

Final participation

No.	date	competition	Topping	partner	Final opponent	Result
1.	February 8, 2015	Quito	sand	Victor Estrella	Gero Kretschmer Alexander Satschko	5: 7, 6: 7 3

Web links

Commons : João Souza  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• ATP profile of João Souza (English)
• ITF profile João Souza (English)
• Davis Cup stats by João Souza (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tennis: Former top 100 player Souza banned for life. tennismagazin.de, January 25, 2020, accessed on January 25, 2020 . 
2. ^ Brazilian Joao Souza suspended again amid corruption investigation. In: tennis.com. April 19, 2019, accessed on July 24, 2019 . 
3. ↑ Brasileiro João Souza, o Feijão, é banido para semper do tênis profissional. In: globoesporte.com. January 25, 2020, accessed January 25, 2020 (Brazilian Portuguese).