Sitting inside of an enclosed sporting arena and fixated on a ball traveling between white lines, Eduardo Longoni couldn’t help himself on Wednesday. He shouted out heartily what he felt in his bones watching in the stands.
“BORA VITÓRIA!!!”
Vitória, as in Esporte Clube Vitória, a professional soccer team in Brazil’s top-flight league, the Brasileirão.
There was just one teeny, tiny problem: Longoni’s echoing bellow didn’t occur amid the cacophony of a soccer stadium, but in the hushed murmur of a tennis court at the 2025 US Open—right before his fellow Brazilian, Joao Fonseca, was about to serve during one of the biggest events of the sport’s calendar.
On the grounds of a Grand Slam tournament, fans are often draped in the colors of their native country’s flag, walking in all directions to catch any of their compatriots on court. And then, after finding their place, they’ll root for them before their voices become hoarse. But at this year’s US Open, one color is shining like the sun.
Yellow is the color of the Brazilian national soccer team jersey, an outfit as iconic in sports as the pinstripes of the New York Yankees. Support for the team is strong, given their record five World Cup titles and history of hosting some of the greatest players the sport has ever seen—from Pelé to Ronaldo to Neymar. Go to any tennis court featuring a Brazilian and you won’t have to look too hard to see a number of those fans wearing the jerseys, a few of them also carrying the flag of Brazil ready to wave it aloft.
“My love for Vitória is unconditional, so it's not related to results or [what sport I am watching],” Longoni told USOpen.org. “So I went to the Australian Open once, I went to Roland Garros once, and every time it's like my mantra. My thing is to shout ‘Bora Vitória!’ so we can spread our team’s words here and for all.”
Many other soccer jerseys are also spotted at the matches. Some spectators ditch the national jersey for their favorite domestic team’s shirt. And, at times, fans end up seeing others dressed in apparel that supports their sworn soccer enemy. One doesn’t have to have an in-depth knowledge of international soccer to know how intense those rivalries can get.
All of that adds up to creating an atmosphere that feels more like the Maracanã, the famed soccer stadium in Rio de Janeiro that’s hosted the World Cup Final twice, than Arthur Ashe Stadium or any other Grand Slam tennis venue of renown.
Fonseca, a supporter of one of the most popular club teams in the world, Flamengo, admitted that he has noticed many fans wearing Flamengo jerseys while in the stands rooting on his tennis.
“That's really nice. I mean, I'm Flamengo, so I never mind it,” said Fonseca, the 2023 US Open boys’ singles champion and current world No. 45. “But it's just great seeing a lot of Brazilians cheering, calling for my name and supporting you. It’s just a Brazilian vibe and super nice.”
What could not be nice (and, at times, flat-out nasty) are the rivalries on the soccer pitch, and Flamengo’s biggest rival is another Rio-based club, Fluminense, whose red-and-green-striped jersey has also been spotted in the stands this week. The intense, brother vs. brother derby known as “Fla-Flu” began in 1911, when a group of dissatisfied Fluminense players broke from the club to join Flamengo, which then was a rowing club that had no soccer department.
Generations of fans that have followed in Rio know the history and use it to shape both their fandom and their enmity. Fonseca, however, isn’t as intense with his soccer support as he is with his punishing baseline game.
“I'm not a big, big, big, big fan of football. I have a team, but I'm not obsessed with it,” Fonseca said. “And if another person we're going to call out ‘Go Corinthians!’ or ‘Go Fluminense!’ or ‘Go!’ any other team, I just see it as a vibe of a Brazilian that likes to scream and likes to cheer. We have this culture with soccer and I mean, that feels like a Brazilian talking to another Brazilian.”
Fonseca may not bleed red and black, the colors of Flamengo, but Longoni all but lives and dies with Vitória, which means he also carried one of the biggest emotional scars of his fandom with him as he traveled from São Paolo to New York.
On Monday, the same day as Fonseca’s first-round victory at this year’s US Open, Vitória suffered its worst-ever home defeat, an 8-0 drubbing that led to the firing of its manager and comments from the team president describing the performance as “shameful.” It was the largest margin of defeat in any match in the Brasileirão since 1984.
The team that embarrassed Vitória so mercilessly on Monday? Flamengo. Fonseca’s Flamengo.
Blood is thicker than water, it is said. For the purposes of the US Open amongst Brazilians, tennis is thicker than soccer.
“I think in times like this, you need to forget a little about football and focus on tennis, because on the football side, I think it's a thing to forget what happened to our team that day,” Longoni said. “But on the tennis side, I will always be with Joao and Joao is with Brazil. So [on] that side, we are together.”
And together Longoni was, with Fonseca on the court and a number of his friends in the upper level of Section 20 in the Grandstand. A cursory glance of the crowd was all that was necessary to not only see the pockets of yellow-clad fans, but also supporters wearing jerseys of their domestic clubs, with the Flamengo shirts dominating in that category.
Conceivably, Longoni (or any Vitória supporter) could have spotted or crossed paths with someone wearing the red, white and blue of his club’s eternal rival, Bahia, also located in Salvador.
Could a Vitória and Bahia fan ever come together and play nice? At least on the tennis court, that possibility exists.
“I think this would be harder because it is our direct rival. It's not like Flamengo,” Longoni said. “But I would just say hi and say let's go. At least today, we're cheering for the same thing. That doesn't happen a lot. So, yeah, that will be it. I will compliment him and talk about Vitória a bit, and then I think we'll be able to have a nice chat.”
Luiz Lavigne, a Bahia fan also from Salvador, echoed Longoni’s sentiment. Lavigne and his wife, Rebecca, sat inside Stadium 17 to watch 2024 US Open quarterfinalist Beatriz Haddad Maia play her second-round match on Thursday.
Lavigne sported Bahia’s red-and-blue-vertical-striped jersey. There was room for one more fan to sit next to the couple, and if it happened to be a Vitória fan, Lavigne would have been alright with that, too.
“What signifies Bahia and Vitória is Brazil. So let’s stay together, sit together because we are from Brazil,” Lavigne told USOpen.org, with Rebecca acting as interpreter. “Two teams, we are different, but the same country, Brazil. We are for Brazil.”
The couple, who arrived from Salvador on Wednesday and is visiting New York City for the first time to watch their first-ever Grand Slam in person, joined the number of flag-waving, fist-pumping “Brazucas” urging on Haddad Maia to victory, with refrains of “Vai Bia!" (“vai” means “go” in Portuguese) and “Ole! Ole! Ole! Ola! … Bia! Bia!” ringing out after Haddad Maia scored.
Those devotees did the same when the current world No. 22 was struggling with leg cramps and nerves in the final stages of her three-set win against Great Britain’s Sonay Kartal in the first round.
One of the more emotional scenes of last year’s tournament occurred inside Louis Armstrong Stadium when Haddad Maia closed out a tight, three-set encounter against former US Open finalist Caroline Wozniacki in the Round of 16. During the on-court interview, Haddad Maia was visibly emotional. Her voice cracked while answering a question about the Brazilian support she felt throughout the grueling 2-hour, 41-minute match against the former Grand Slam champion and fellow fan-favorite Wozniacki.
“Brazilians are very special, loud, warm, and they like to make some noise, and I know that they are supporting a lot of Brazilians, especially Joao now also,” Haddad Maia told USOpen.org, after her win on Thursday. “And it's very nice to see [many] more people coming and watching and supporting tennis. It's important for our country, for our future. It feels great. I feel happy. It's an honor to represent them, so I was trying to play my best in front of them.”
In the past two years at Flushing Meadows, Haddad Maia has indeed played some of her best tennis, and that’s in no small part due to the support generated by her ardent fans at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. But she also admits that, when her level falls a little bit, a few of those same supporters in the stands will let her know about it in a unique way.
“Sometimes I can hear some names of [soccer] teams when I play. They can scream something, and sometimes it's my team and sometimes it's the rival,” said Haddad Maia, a supporter of the Brazilian soccer club São Paolo. “Sometimes if I lose the point, I can listen [afterward] and sometimes they make this kind of joke saying the opposite [team]. But I try to concentrate and not listen to everyone.”
On Thursday, however, all the cheers were positive during her straight-sets victory, which now sees her back on Louis Armstrong Stadium for Saturday night’s match against Maria Sakkari. After her win in Round 2, Haddad Maia hit autographed balls in the stands, and the penultimate ball she cracked was caught by another soccer jersey-wearing fan.
Luckily for Haddad Maia, the ball wasn’t caught by a person who rooted for a rival team.
“Here in the US Open, it's all for the Brazilian players now. For Joao, for Bia, for Luisa Stefani, all the ones that are going to play,” said Marcelo Hoffmann, the fan who caught the ball and was wearing the jersey of Porto Alegre-based club Grêmio.
“So it's all for them, them. The rivalry in soccer stays in soccer. There’s only one goal.”
