Jaime Faria might be the only player on the ATP Challenger Tour who can say that his artwork has appeared in a museum.
Faria’s father, Nuno, works as a history of art professor and museum curator. When Faria and his younger brother Vicente were children, they would spend countless hours at museums, listening to Nuno explain the various pieces displayed.
When a family friend directed an exposition in a Lisbon gallery, he featured work from Jaime and Vicente.
“We are not artists, but before we were and we didn’t know,” Faria said with a laugh when speaking to ATPTour.com. “We drew some paintings and actually — my father got some of those things that we did exposed in a museum and we really enjoyed it.
“We spent a lot of time in the museums, being quiet, listening, watching. We would play around, sometimes just doing nothing or things we weren’t supposed to do.”
Art has not completely left the 21-year-old Faria. He recently sported a playful haircut, featuring a bold zig-zag design. Though that style was not by choice. Rather, it was Faria paying his dues as part of a Portuguese Davis Cup tradition which requires rookies to sport a haircut chosen by teammates during training week.
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“They can do whatever they want, whenever they want with my hair,” Faria said. “It’s part of the tradition and I don’t want to be the guy who isn’t part of the tradition… We really have a good bond with the Portuguese players.”
Gastao Elias served as the barber and was assisted by Henrique Rocha and Nuno Borges. However, the team’s house rules state that if the rookie competes — like Faria did in the tie against Norway last month — the unconventional haircut is completely shaved. “If you go to the match, you are totally bald,” said Faria.
The eye-catching design made its rounds on social media and drew laughs from fans. Faria has also made news by having great success on the ATP Challenger Tour this season. He captured his second Challenger title of the season last week in Curitiba, Brazil.
<img alt=”Jaime Faria wins the ATP Challenger Tour 100 event in Curitiba, Brazil.” style=”width:100%;” src=”/-/media/images/news/2024/10/28/21/00/faria-curitibach-2024-trophy.jpg” />
Jaime Faria wins the ATP Challenger Tour 100 event in Curitiba, Brazil. Credit: João Pires
Faria’s first title came in May on home soil in Oeiras, where his family sat courtside as he lifted the trophy.
It was a full circle, milestone moment on the Portuguese coast for Faria, who played football and tennis as a child and started training at the Federation aged 16. He recalls first playing tennis after attending an exhibition in Algarve, Portugal that featured legends such as John McEnroe, Marcelo Rios and Mats Wilander.
“My father bought tickets to that, but we were not old enough to go, so they put us in the kids place, but we didn’t really want to go to the kids place. We asked to watch the matches and we stayed there days and days watching them,” Faria said. “We just started, I asked to play tennis, really enjoyed it from that.”
Faria is not the only Portuguese young star shining bright on the Challenger circuit. The #NextGenATP 20-year-old Rocha also claimed his first title at that level this season. Faria and Rocha live together and work with the same coaches at the Portuguese Tennis Federation: Pedro Sousa and Neuza Silva.
Following his title in Brazil, Faria is up to a career-high No. 120 in the PIF ATP Rankings. Rocha is World No. 179.
“He’s a great friend of mine. We’ve known each other since real young,” Faria said of Rocha. “Of course you have some motivation seeing a guy that works with you that can do it, you know that you can do it.”
Fortunately, both Faria and Rocha have already undergone the humble haircut tradition, marking their transition from ‘rookies’ to the next batch of ATP Tour stars hailing from Portugal.
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