Fonseca, 18, offers a sign of tennis' powerful future: A 181kmh forehand

When you meet the future and feel its charming, ferocious force, it's best just to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

- Rohit Brijnath

And so when Andrey Rublev, the No. 9 seed, gets flattened in straight sets by an 18-year-old Brazilian qualifier named Joao Fonseca, who's never even played a Grand Slam match before, he does the smartest thing possible.

He bares his teeth in a sort of disbelieving, dazed grin.

Maybe Fonseca said something amusing to him at the net. Or maybe Rublev, an endearing Russian, gifted enough to have wins over Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, is just wondering: Who is this kid? Did he just dominate me in two tiebreaks? What happened out there?

You can be sure Rublev isn't alone. You can be certain on the night of Jan 14 that treadmills were paused in the locker room and warm-down halted. These dudes are a grizzled, rough-hewn, seen-everything tribe, but they know how to recognise the future.

In The Untouchables, Sean Connery instructs Kevin Costner how to meet the enemy: "He pulls a knife, you pull a gun". Fonseca respectfully pulled a bazooka. He hit 14 aces in three sets and one at 214kmh. It was just him saying "hello". Then he smacked 27 winners with his forehand (nine with his backhand), one of which was the fastest at this Open at 181kmh. Usually after matches, courts are vacuumed; this one might have needed to have divots filled.