January 2023 – Luisa Stefani, world number 34 in doubles, and Rafael Matos, 29th in the men’s category, remain in tune and, on Saturday night (21), secured a place in the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles at the Australian Open, first Grand Slam of the season. The two beat the duo formed by the Croatian Mate Pavic and the American Bethanie Mattek, who already led the doubles classification, by 2 sets to 0, with a double 6/4, after 1h12min.
“We played a great game, we managed to serve very well. Rafa and I have been playing together since the United Cup in Brisbane, we added one more game and the more we play together the better we perform. It was really good and fun to play alongside him,” highlighted the athlete, who is sponsored by Fila and Faros Invest, is an XP COB ambassador and has the support of Liga Tênis 10 and Bolsa Atleta.
Luisa and Rafa will seek a place in the semi-finals against the winners of the match between the 8th seeded duo formed by the Canadian Gabriela Dabrowski and the Australian Max Purcell or the Australian duo formed by Lizette Cabrera and John Smith.
Make the story of his career – Luisa Stefani, 25, started playing tennis at the age of 10, at B.Sports, in the neighborhood of Perdizes, in São Paulo (SP), where she was born. He played in the main draws of all four junior Grand Slams and made it to the US Open junior doubles semi-finals in 2015, when he reached No. 10 in the world youth rankings. He went to the United States to study and play tennis. On the college circuit, he played for Pepperdine University in California. Between 2015 and 2018, still on the American university circuit, he devoted himself in part to the ITF professional circuit. He chose to drop out of college to fully compete on the professional circuit from mid-2018.
He rose to prominence in professional doubles and started reaping results in 2019, winning a WTA title in Tashkent. In 2020, he won the WTA 125 from Newport Beach and celebrated the WTA title from Lexington. She finished the year ranked 33rd in the world, the first Brazilian in the top 40 in more than three decades. In 2021, she went to the WTA 500 final in Abu Dhabi, reaching the top 30 – the first Brazilian tennis player since 1976. And the WTA 1000 runner-up in Miami moved her up to 25th position – then the best by a Brazilian since the creation of the WTA rankings in 1975.
At the Tokyo Games, he won the unprecedented Olympic bronze medal for Brazil alongside Laura Pigossi. He continued his progression in the rankings and reached ninth place at the start of 2022. On his return to the circuit, after knee surgery, he won three titles at the end of the 2022 season: WTA 250 in Chennai, India, WTA 1000 in Guadalajara, Mexico, and WTA 125 Montevideo, Uruguay, back in the WTA Top 50
