If you’re Brazilian and Pelé follows you on social media, you know you’ve made it.
Just in case your Olympics bronze medal left any doubt.
Luisa Stefani became a household name in Brazil last month first by capturing the country’s first Olympic medal in tennis (with doubles partner Laura Pigossi, saving eight match points along the way) and then becoming the first Brazilian woman to crack the Top 20 in either singles or doubles since Maria Bueno, who won seven Grand Slam singles titles in the 1950s and 1960s.
In Brazil, the Olympics are everything. Succeeding there makes an athlete a star. “For me, the Olympics is the best sporting event in the world,” Stefani said. “I’ve always watched it, whatever sport, whatever was on TV.”
The 24-year-old, a product of the Saddlebrook Tennis Academy and Pepperdine University, started the year with her sights set on the Tokyo Olympics, but by May, she was losing hope. The French Open was her last chance to raise her ranking high enough for Olympics qualification. But she came down with appendicitis the week before Paris. She couldn’t play. No Tokyo.
After surgery, she managed to get healthy enough for Wimbledon. She and her regular partner, American Hayley Carter, lost in the first round and had to play each other in the opening round of mixed doubles. After the tournament, Carter was injured and told Stefani that she was shutting it down for the year. Stefani, ranked a career-high No. 23 in doubles, decided to take a few weeks off herself and reset, both emotionally and physically.
“I made peace with it, with the idea to focus on Paris 2024,” she says.
Things looked up a little bit when Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada, an acquaintance from Saddlebrook, signed on as Stefani’s partner for the rest of the year—the Brazilian’s chance of making the WTA Finals were alive.
Then a miracle—a few days before Tokyo’s Opening Ceremony, Stefani and Pigossi became the last women’s doubles team to qualify for the Olympics. “I kid you not, everything changed in a matter of 10 days. My life was planned, and in 10 days, my life literally changed completely,” Stefani said of both her Olympics and WTA season revival. “Laura didn’t even know she was signed up. She was playing a tournament in Kazakhstan.”
Tokyo was everything Stefani dreamed of. “Every day, I couldn’t believe it, just getting chills,” she said. “All the players, the uniforms, the rings—pure bliss, every day, all day, all the time.” The good friends agreed that they wanted a medal, not just an experience. “We were there on a mission. We weren’t there to play around in Tokyo,” Stefani said. “We had a great chat before we started. We had played together before, but not well, so we knew we needed to change something.”
Of all people, Dabrowski (with Sharon Fichman) was their first opponent. The Brazilians won, then faced the Czech Republic team of Karolina Pliskova, fresh off her Wimbledon singles final, and Marketa Vondrousova, the eventual silver medalist in singles. They saved four match points and won again. Next up, American doubles legend Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Jessica Pegula. They won again.
Despite the dark stadiums, empty except for Brazilian teammates and other athletes, Stefani and Pigossi didn’t feel alone. “Every match, social media was skyrocketing. We could feel the energy from Brazil, them showing it on TV. A lot of our matches were intense, and we could feel people cheering,” Stefani said.
They lost the semi against the Swiss team of Viktorija Golubic and Belinda Bencic, the eventual gold medalists in singles. They were devastated, but quickly realized it wasn’t the end of the road. In the bronze-medal match, they were down four match points in the match tiebreak. Each point, the ball was in play—none ended on a double fault or ace. “We were just in the zone. Not thinking, just playing," Stefani says. “At the end, the team went crazy in the stands, and Laura and I were happy-crying. From then on, it was life-changing.”
If that wasn’t eventful enough, Stefani also got to play against Novak Djokovic (with Nina Stojanovic) in the first round of mixed doubles. She and Marcelo Melo lost, playing together for the first time. “I’ll want to put all the points that I won crosscourt against him and make my own match and just take confidence for that,” she jokes.
Back on the WTA Tour for the North American hardcourt swing, and with Brazilian soccer star David Luiz now paying attention on social media, Stefani and Dabrowski made the final in San Jose. Then they won Montreal, Stefani’s first WTA 1000 title. Then finaled in Cincinnati, another WTA 1000. By the end of the run, Stefani was ranked No. 17 in doubles, Brazil’s first Top 20 woman in 60 years.
The opportunity to lift up Brazilian tennis is just as meaningful to Stefani as the historic hardware she has earned. She started playing tennis and showing promise in her pre-teen years, but the competition isn’t as good as it is elsewhere, and it’s expensive to travel to junior tournaments around the world. The Brazilian real’s weak exchange rate against the Euro makes it tough to compete overseas. By the age of 14, coaches were telling her parents that they should consider leaving Brazil to give her the best shot.
The Stefanis moved the family to Tampa. Both Stefani and her older brother attended and trained at Saddlebrook. “In Brazil, I would have maybe one or two girls to practice with. Then I got to the States, you see hundreds. The level of competition at the academy every day was a shock.”
Her parents managed to run their family business from Florida. Stefani says they sacrificed living near family to give their kids a chance at playing college tennis and get a good education. Saddlebrook ended up giving Stefani more than that.
“It was a big part of my development, especially game style,” she said. “In South America in general, we play a lot of clay, far back from the baseline. In Europe and the U.S., we see faster game styles, more aggressive. A lot of South American juniors struggle to transition. As seniors, you need to start picking up and being aggressive.”
She rose to No. 10 in the world as a junior and played several Slams. Stefani’s brother went to play at Xavier University. Though she wanted to go pro right after graduating from Saddlebrook, she instead decided to play one year at Pepperdine. That turned into three when she won the ITA Rookie of the Year as a freshman and fell in love with the team atmosphere. Nationally, she reached No. 2 in singles and No. 8 in doubles. She took the fall of her junior year off to try the pros, but visa issues prevented her from training at Saddlebrook. “I ended up struggling, maybe being lonely,” she said. She took one more stab at a national title with Pepperdine, then it was time to join the WTA.
Stefani had played ITA events during school breaks, so she had a Top 200 ranking in doubles when she struck out full-time in 2018. In early 2019, she played her first WTA Tour event in Monterrey, Mexico, when USC alum Giuliana Olmos invited Stefani to partner up. They made the semis.
Then Stefani and Carter linked up in mid-2019. They knew each other from the NCAA world, but not well. Carter had played at the University of North Carolina and set the record for match wins in the Atlantic Coast Conference. “She’s one of the best college players ever. I played her a few times, and I always thought it was really hard,” Stefani said. They gelled immediately, made a final in their first tournament, and won the next one, in Tashkent, in the fall of 2019. They couldn’t celebrate because they had an early flight the next day. Later, Stefani went to Barcelona to visit Pigossi and they went out for Brazilian food.
Modest, but better, things were to come.
Stefani would like to parlay her success into singles at some point. She tried when she left Pepperdine to play full-time on the circuit, but the results didn’t come. Doubles was more fun—and more lucrative. “Financially, I wanted to take the weight off my parents’ back,” Stefani said. “For as much as they were happy to do it, it put extra pressure on me, trying to do well in both.” So she focused on what was working.
Right now, everything is working. Stefani and Carter were quarterfinalists in New York last year. This year, Stefani and Dabrowski won their first match, 6-1, 6-2. Later that night, they both had to play mixed doubles—against each other. Dabrowski and Marcus Daniell won in a see-saw match, 11-9 in the match tiebreak. “We didn’t really talk about it. We just joked and that’s it,” Stefani said. “We know that could happen. It just sucks that it’s first round. But at least one of us will move forward.”
Together, they both might keep going quite far. And Stefani hopes more Brazilians follow in her footsteps.
“It’s insane how much popularity the Olympic medal brought to Brazilian tennis,” she said. “It always seems unattainable to make it to the pro circuit, that’s why there aren’t more player. The Olympics made it seem possible, and that’s so inspiring to be a part of that.”
