Rolex’s Rio Open story looks towards a younger generation

A long-standing tournament partnership can be told through new faces. Rolex’s Rio Open announcement in February 2025 placed João Fonseca and Holger Rune alongside its continued role as the event’s official timekeeper.

WAYFARER’s preview described the ATP 500 tournament at Rio’s Jockey Club Brasileiro and named both players as Rolex ambassadors. Fonseca brought a Brazilian connection, while Rune’s anticipated appearance supplied another strand of the forthcoming programme.

The source framed the partnership as its eleventh consecutive year. It also located the Rio event within the watchmaker’s wider tennis involvement, referring to Wimbledon and other major fixtures in the international calendar.

For an audience following watches as well as sport, the useful detail is the way the announcement paired continuity with a newer generation. The existing tournament relationship provided the structure; the players gave that structure a more immediate human focus.

This is an adaptation of a pre-tournament archive, not a report of match results or a statement about either player’s current ranking. It does not reproduce the source’s quotations as independently checked interviews. The story remains tied to February 2025, when the coming Rio week was presented through two players and an established timekeeping partnership.

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Adapted from the WAYFARER Brazil archive, first published 2025-02-06. English adaptation: 6 October 2026. This is an archival account, not a report of a new visit. Exhibitions, collections and menu details are described in their original context, not as current availability.