Beatriz Haddad Maia will not remember this Wimbledon fortnight because of her first-round exit. Instead, the Brazilian tennis star will forever associate this summer with getting engaged to her childhood friend, Alex Daoud, during a romantic trip to Rome.
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The couple shared their engagement news on Instagram, along with a glimpse into a super sweet love story that began long before either of them knew where life would take them. Their bond started in early childhood and eventually came full circle.
“After all these years, you’re still the same boy who gives me butterflies, just like when we were six years old, playing soccer, running around pretending to be cops and robbers, and wandering around the club with our cousins and siblings looking for a little mischief,” Haddad Maia wrote in her emotional post, revealing that their connection goes back decades.
Like many childhood friendships, theirs was not a straight path. Life took them in different directions, but years later, they found their way back to each other and rekindled the bond that had always been there.
“I’ll never forget when we were nine years old and you asked my cousin to see if I’d be your girlfriend at the playground… and I said no,” the 30-year-old Haddad Maia recalled, admitting that perhaps the timing was not meant to be back then. “I have to admit, though, I don’t regret it. Who knows what might have happened if our story had taken a different path?”
Besides sharing their photos together through the years, including ones of Haddad Maia showing her Tiffany & Co. engagement ring, the best part is a handwritten “time capsule” letter from Daoud, written exactly two decades ago when he was just 10 years old.
In the letter, written in English, young Alex listed his dreams: “I want to help people and I want to marry Bia.”
Talk about a childhood dream coming true!
And that dream is even more remarkable considering that Daoud grew up to become a neurosurgeon, fulfilling one of the wishes he wrote down as a child.
The couple only recently began sharing their relationship publicly on social media. According to my records, their first photo together appeared in September 2025.
