Ricardo Acioly became a professional tennis player in 1986 and won his first title on the ATP Tour in Vienna that same year . His partner was Wojciech Fibak from Poland . In 1987 he won his second title in Geneva with Luiz Mattar , before he celebrated the third and last title of his career in 1989 with Dacio Campos in Guarujá . In addition, he was in three other finals on the ATP Tour. On the second-rate ATP Challenger Tour , he won a total of seven tournaments in doubles. He reached his highest ranking in the tennis world rankings in 1986 with position 228 in singles and position 46 in doubles.
His best individual result at a Grand Slam tournament was reaching the main round of the US Open in 1986. In the doubles competition, he was only able to move into the second round at the US Open in 1987.
Ricardo Acioly completed a total of four games for the Brazilian Davis Cup team between 1987 and 1989 . He was used in all games in doubles, but could only win the game against Ecuador on the side of Luiz Mattar .
At the 1988 Summer Olympics he played doubles for Brazil. Together with Luiz Mattar he reached the second round, where they were defeated by the French doubles Henri Leconte and Guy Forget in four sets. Previously, they had defeated the Japanese Shūzō Matsuoka and Toshihisa Tsuchihashi in four sets in the opening round .